Another year, another Geelong finals appearance, right?
There are some that recoil at the thought, but after falling at the final hurdle in 2025, I have no doubt Geelong will be back to doing what they do best in 2026 – playing good, consistent footy, and making the top four.
They’re like clockwork, this mob, and not one of the bodgy timepieces you get from South Melbourne Market – I haven’t forgotten putting my watch in there for “repair” and them repairing it so well that they stole all the authentic parts and replaced them with shit ones!
Anyway, in regard to the Cats, I’m talking Swiss-Made, top of the line timepieces. When you talk about contenders, you simply cannot leave Geelong out of the picture. Time and time again, they have found ways to stay in the frame for a premiership. It’s not luck – they just do things better than everyone else.
This team has consistently thumbed their collective noses at the AFL’s equalisation plan, becoming a fixture in September for the 19th time in the last 22 years last time. They’ll make it 20 out of 23 this year.
They have been rather quiet in terms of additions, with the only name of note joining the club for this campaign being James Worpel (they keep reeling in these former Geelong Falcons), but the Cats have so many pieces in place to mount another assault that it almost seems unfair.
When the whips are cracking, they’ll be there. Again.
If you’re reading all our previews, you can skip ahead a little bit – it’s the standard intro.
We’re steaming toward a new season, and as we do, it is time to turn our attention away from the glory of last year and look at the possibilities of the new one.
The players have been on the track for a while now – the Christmas break is over, and as we work through January, the charge into the new season ramps right up.
This is where premierships are won and lost. This is where improvements are made and lists come together. This is where the kids show if they’re serious or not, and young projects become the next group of stars. New faces, new colours, old heads with renewed passion… so much feeds into the making of a contender. And as the days tick down toward the intra-club clashes, practice games, and eventually the real stuff, questions are raised about each team and how they’re going to perform in this new season.
And that’s where HB and The Mongrel come in.
We don’t do things by halves here, at The Mongrel Punt. When we do a season preview, we go all in to make sure it is the best, most comprehensive coverage you’ll receive. We pride ourselves on it. If you want to read one season preview for your team, or any team, this series will provide what you’re after.
The way it works is as follows.
Each club has a minimum of 15 questions asked about the upcoming season, their coaches, their players, and their expectations. The answers are not glossed over. We dive deep on each and every one of them – some singular answers would normally be long enough for an entire column. The first five questions/answers are free for you to consume. The next 10-14 for each club are for our members, including a special appearance from Mrs Mongrel to throw her two cents in the mix.
Isn’t it a bit early for a season preview? Well, I suppose, but do you know how long it takes to write seven-to-nine thousand words? That’s 18 x 8,000… gets out the calculator… that’s 144,000 words. The average novel is about 85,000 words, so buckle the hell up with these previews; HB goes deeper than anyone else covering the game..
Also, if there are any issues that arise after the publication of the preview for any team, they will be covered in standalone articles to act as additions to this preview.
You will not read a more comprehensive season preview than this – I guarantee it. This is where we start the run to the new season, and believe me – nobody does it better than The Mongrel.
Let’s jump into the season preview for the Cats.
1 – AFTER 12 MONTHS ON THE SIDELINES, WHAT CAN TANNER BRUHN ADD TO THIS TEAM?
There are a few people online who were very busy deleting their comment history a few months ago. It’s why we never open discussion on things away from footy on any of our social media pages. You just have to wait until the details come out.
Tanner Bruhn has just sat out a season of his footy life. You don’t get that many. He missed a fantastic year for the Cats, and a run into the finals he would have dearly loved to be a part of.
He wasn’t.
He watched from the sidelines, and it got to the stage that even a mention of his name by a teammate on social media drew the trolls out from under their bridges. Then, they all went quiet. No apologies. No backing over their comments. They just pretended they did’t go gun-jumping. It’s the way of things on the internet.
Bruhn is now 23 years old. Prior to his stint on the sidelines, he was in the midst of an upward trajectory as part of the Cats, averaging career-highs of 17.1 disposals and 5.1 clearances in 2024.
Can you see a reason he can’t pick up right where he left off?
In the opener to this article, I specifically mentioned the Cats had not added much to the list, but getting Bruhn back into the mix is like gaining a whole new recruit, and one that should be banging the door down on his prime.
Looking at the Geelong midfield, adding Bruhn to the mix of Max Holmes, Bailey Smith, James Worpel, Tom Atkins, and the part-time influence of Patrick Dangerfield, enables the Cats to bat that little bit deeper. And as we’ve seen in recent years, depth is a quantity that is often the difference between scraping into finals, and residing in the top four.
Bruhn was coming along beautifully before his absence. Some may have been a little impatient with him, but a then-21-year-old averaging five clearances per game, gave you a great glimpse of what he could mean to this team.
If he can pick up where he left off, and form a nice inside combination with Atkins and Worpel, the impact of the fleet-footed mids capitalising on his work may increase yet again, as a result
2 – ARE SAM DE KONING AND CONNOR O’SULLIVAN THE NEXT GREAT GEELONG DEFENSIVE PAIRING?
The Cats just keep doing it. The line of high-quality defenders this team continues to unearth is borderline ridiculous.
Jump back a while and you have names like Scarlett, Harley, Enright, Taylor, Lonergan, Blicavs, Stewart, and now, you have a trio of Henry, De Koning, and O’Sullivan ready to pick up the gauntlet and run with it.
It almost annoys me that these blokes are so good at identifying talent, bringing them into the system and developing them into A-Grade defenders. For crying out loud, they even turned Zach Guthrie, who looked the least likely to accomplish anything other than being someone’s brother, into a fantastic intercept player.
But it is the duo of De Koning and O’Sullivan that intrigues me most.
As it stands, you have Jack Henry down there, and he is probably the number one defender at the moment, but fast forward a few years from now, and you can already see Connor O’Sullivan tagging in and making that role his own.
I should have listened to our Geelong-supporting writers.
This time last year, all they talked about was how Connor O’Sullivan was gonna do this, and Connor O’Sullivan was going to do that. I put it down to the pre-season hope/hype, as we all do that with players on our teams to some extent. We try to will their improvement into existence.
I looked at O’Sullivan, and at that stage, he had one game to his name. I thought these Geelong blokes were dreaming.
COS turned dreams into nightmares for the opposition forward lines. Playing 25 games, his ability to hold his ground and use his reach to win contests was ridiculous. Whilst so many midfielders win awards, I thought his impact, in a very tough position, was every bit as deserving of the Ron Evans Medal as anyone else in the competition.
And he is only going to get better.
When you line him up against the athletic Sam De Koning, you quickly come to the conclusion that this Cats team has their defensive pillars in place for the next six-to-ten years.
As an opposition supporter, I am both incredibly impressed, and absolutely appalled by this result.
In their heart of hearts, most footy fans respect the hell out of Geelong. They may not like them, but they have to respect them. Part of that respect emanates from the way this club has been able to stay “up” over such a long duration. And when you cast an eye over the list and see the players they possess who are still right on the front nine of their careers, you know that the Cats aren’t going anywhere.
I used to think that West Coast were blessed with the line of wonderful defenders they’ve had over the years. The Cats might have them covered over the last quarter of a century, and I don’t think they’re ready to slow down, just yet.
3 – HOW DO GEELONG BEST USE PATRICK DANGERFIELD IN 2026?
Don’t you hate when you lose a game and some wanker in the media trots out the line that it was a learning experience for the team?
Even more painful is when one of them decides to use the “there is no losing… only learning” line after a defeat. You can tell they’ve gone to some bullshit management consultancy and sat in a room with that management speak drilled into them.
I’m glad Chris Scott didn’t use that line after the 2026 Grand Final, even though there was one thing (or several things, in hindsight) that the club could have done very differently.
The most glaring thing was that Patrick Dangerfield can no longer put the cape on every single week, regardless of how high the stakes are.
His Preliminary Final effort to power Geelong over Hawthorn was one of the most scintillating performances of his career. Danger threw his body into the contest like each one was his last. He crashed and bashed his way to a brilliant 31 disposals and three goals, as he stood before his team and said “follow me, boys”.
And they did.
With Dangerfield in that type of form, resistance was futile.
But it came at a big cost. So hard at the footy was he, so intent to throw his body into the fray at every opportunity, he looked sore the next week. He looked more like Clark Kent than anyone wearing their undies on the outside.
And as a result, he was unable to provide that same intensity. Maybe the mind was willing, but the body was not able.
The Cats need to be mindful of this heading into 2026, and if it means that Danger is rested every few weeks to ensure he hits finals in the best possible shape, then so be it. We’ve seen how Jeremy Cameron can work to compensate for his loss, and given we all expect the Cats to be in the season up to their eyeballs, his recovery simply has to be prioritised over a walk-up win over the Tigers late in the year.
I don’t care if people think it damages his legacy in any way. I think it would probably enhance it if he were able to come into finals, after a season where he was managed to avoid soft tissue injuries and fatigue, and he put together three or four weeks of Danger-like footy.
He may still be one of the most explosive players in the league, and we saw that in the Prelim. However, what I want to see is Danger handled delicately, like anything that may explode, until he is absolutely ready to be deployed.
And when that time arrives, duck for cover, because if he can do even half of what he did to the Hawks again in the 2026 finals series, it is going to be absolute carnage.
4 – IS SHANNON NEALE THE KEY TO THE ATTACK THIS YEAR?
Neale took some big steps in 2025, but when it came time to take the biggest one, it proved to be a bit too much of a leap for him.
His role was to keep Harris Andrews under wraps in the Grand Final, and given that the Brisbane captain was close to best on ground (some of us thought he was the best), it is safe to say that Shannon didn’t quite get the job done.
However, that one performance should not detract from how good Neale was for the Cats for the remainder of the year. Second only to Jeremy Cameron for goals per game, Neale became a viable second option for the club, and demonstrated enough mongrel and attack on the footy to leave supporters feeling that the forward half will be in safe hands when Jeremy Cameron decides to hang the boots up.
At the moment, he is 23 years of age, and after 44 goals for the season, is sitting nicely in the bracket of emerging power forwards in the league. And yet… when people discuss the best around that age, it is only Cats fans that throw his name out there.
You can understand why, to a point, I guess. He plays behind the best forward in the game, so most of what he does gets a bit lost. Meanwhile, Riley Thilthorpe, Josh Treacy, and Logan Morris stand up as the main target and get the attention lavished on them as a result.
But things change quickly in this league, and Neale could be on the cusp of a big year. What would a 55-goal season do for his standing? And what would it do for the Cats?
In the section on Jezza, I’ll look at the option to use him more sparingly and give him rest when he needs it. The better Shannon Neale plays, the more likely that is.
I expect there’ll be some games in 2026 where Shannon Neale lines up coming out of the goal square, as the Cats start to do in attack what they’ve done in defence for years – transition to the next era.
At 1.4 contested grabs per game in 2025, Neale has whet the appetite for a big 2026. If he can elevate his output to over two goals per game, this Geelong team becomes even more of a nightmare to deal with inside 50.
As if they weren’t, already.
5 – WHAT IS THE CEILING FOR OLLIE DEMPSEY?
I had some Cats supporters mock me after the 2025 season, and for a change, it wasn’t due to my appearance, body odour, or choice of footy team.
You see, we run an annual Wingman of the Year Award, and we are lucky enough, and privileged to name it after the great Robert Flower (eternal thanks to the Flower family for granting us permission).
Jarrod Berry won it in 2025.
And Cats fans said I didn’t know what I was talking about. Did they have a point?
Ollie Dempsey is an outstanding wingman – perhaps the most damaging outside runner in the game. He finished the season with 35 goals, which is an incredible return for a wingman, and truthfully, would be a fantastic result for most small forwards in the league.
Right from the outset of his career, you could see that Dempsey was going to punish opposition teams. He refuses to be drawn to the contest and always kept his width. As soon as the footy is released from congestion, guess who’s out there waiting for the loose ball?
Your old pal, Ollie. And he punished the opposition often.
But you know what Ollie doesn’t do?
He doesn’t get back and help his defence. Whether it is part of the game plan, with the Cats deploying one offensive and one defensive wingman, or not, the area of his game he needs to improve is how often he gets back and gives his teammates a chop out.
Allow me to explain further.
Berry was ranked first because he played both ways. He averaged 3.1 inside 50s and 3.0 defensive 50 rebounds. Balanced.
Massimo D’Ambrosio was a little more lopsided, but still got back a heap. He was at 2.7 inside 50s and 2.1 rebounds.
And then you have Dempsey. He was 2.7 inside 50s, and 0.7 rebounds.
Now, you see? The award finds the most complete wing in the game, and Dempsey was playing half a role. That half was exceptionally good – that’s why he finished second, but a complete performance beat him.
Can he add the defensive string to his bow in 2026?
Does he need to?
Dempsey is just 23. He has a ton of footy in front of him, and the temptation has to be not to try to fix what is not broken, but if there is potential for improvement, and the chance to make him a more complete player, would the Cats be crazy not to explore it?
I know what you’re thinking – why would Dempsey bother to switch things up just so he ranks higher in HB’s cruddy wingman award, right? You’d be surprised how many footy people actually care about little things like that.
A version of Ollie Dempsey who can retain his offensive firepower, as well as introduce a better defensive focus is a force to be reckoned with. If you thought he was good in 2025, there is a chance he comes out and becomes a better all-round player as soon as this season.
The remainder of this article, and the next 16 questions are for our members. They support me, and I provide for them. It’s a good deal.
Oh… a Mongrel paywall… the worst of all paywalls. We’re on the march to the 2026 AFL season and it all begins here. The Mongrel’s Big Questions Season Previews are THE best in the business. If you know, you know… if not, maybe it’s time to find out. Pre-Season, Practice Games… we’re all in. Dump the mainstream lip service and dive into articles like this – you will never look back. If you don’t want to, that’s fine. You’re welcome to re-read the first five questions again, but if you do… there is a heap more below.
