This will start off on the wrong foot, but so be it.
Weak teams cannot win at Kardinia Park. Good teams can, and they come into contests at the venue with that mindset, but for every decent team with self-belief, there are half a dozen who come in with a defeatist mindset, and I reckon the Suns were one of them.
Worse, I reckon Geelong can sense it when a team has that stench about them.
They see the heads drop. They see and hear the complaining to the umps, and the frustration, and they prey on it.
You could see it in players like Max Holmes, who took the game on at every opportunity, Ollie Dempsey, who worked with close attention from Sam Clohesy, but managed to get forward and kick two goals, and it should have been three. And you could see it in the way Tom Atkins went to Matt Rowell and took him on in the middle of the ground.
One of my all-time favourite players, and one of Geelong’s great nemeses, Dermott Brereton used to speak of his team sensing when the opposition was slightly off, even if it were just a few percent, and how they would up the ante as a result. This contest had an element of that about it, as Geelong fed on the frustration of the Suns, to open up their matchwinning lead in the second quarter, and from there, it was a classic Geelong game, taking what the opposition gave them, and giving them nothing in return.
The full-time margin of 45 points felt about right, as the Suns had too much left to too few once again, and now look like a team teetering on the edge. Meanwhile, Geelong now looks at the top four as a likely finishing position this season, and if the Cats are in the mix, you’d be a daring one to bet against them getting back to the last Saturday in September.
Here are HB’s Loves and Hates from this one.
This is just the introduction – the remainder of this article is 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 all in on the 2026 AFL season. Player articles, stats, awards, game coverage. 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. I consider it your loss as we get into the grind of the season, and you’re stuck with the stuff that’s frustrated you for years.
