Win Builds The Cats' Confidence
The Age
Monday May 14, 2007
HAVING toppled West Coast, Geelong could now beat any side in the competition, its acting skipper Cameron Ling said after the Cats upset the premier by 39 points yesterday.
Ensuring that it did, suggested Ling, his teammate Cameron Mooney and coach Mark Thompson, would start with the attitude the team brought to today's review of the round seven game."If we play to the strengths of our team and we really are intent at the ball and intent at the man, and play good, hard, honest footy we know we can match it with any team in the comp. And today gives all the boys the belief that we can do that," Ling said."I think there's certainly a group of us that's always believed, but maybe a couple of the younger guys thought maybe we're not good enough, maybe we're not there. But . . . they can see we can beat West Coast, and if we play the same way we should be able to beat any team."It's up to us now to show whether or not we're mentally strong. Some people have suggested over the last few weeks that we're a bit mentally fragile, which I disagree with, but I suppose the test's on us now."Mooney, who booted four goals but is likely to be scrutinised by the match review panel after he appeared to clash heads with Beau Waters in an off-the-ball incident during the third term, said his team had to maintain a level attitude despite its success."That's probably our main downfall as a group and - I'm not afraid to say it - that we do get ahead of ourselves and it's really annoying that we do that," he said."We're a good side and we played like a good side today . . . That's the way we want to play every week and when we go away from that we're the most ordinary side in the AFL."We come in tomorrow for a meeting and we (need to make sure we) don't just laugh and all pat each other on the back and tell each other how good we are."Coach Thompson, who only two weeks ago after a 16-point loss to the Kangaroos was lamenting his team's "poor attitude, a lack of respect for the game and the opposition", said Geelong had produced a benchmark standard for themselves yesterday."We played some terrific footy today. I'm very proud . . . I'm going to enjoy watching the game."It's a great example of them wanting to play a certain style, implementing it, and then seeing how good that style actually is," Thompson said."The key is for us just to go back and restart and play that sort of footy again . . . which has been something of a problem for a while here, but I'm confident that we're capable of doing that, that we're capable of playing that way more often."The meeting with previously undefeated West Coast had proved the perfect challenge for the Cats after their 157-point hiding of Richmond the previous week, Thompson said. He praised Ling's stopping job on Daniel Kerr - the driver for his side when the teams last met and West Coast recovered from a 54-point deficit to win by three points."If there's any Geelong supporters that think he (Ling) shouldn't be in the team they're actually kidding themselves, they're not watching footy because he just knocked over another big star today," Thompson said.Kerr did not add to his possession count of 10 after half-time yesterday.Matthew Scarlett's game, Thompson said, was "as mean as mean as I've ever seen him play. And he still ended up with 25 possessions himself. It was an outstanding effort".Geelong will assess Joel Selwood (concussion) and Andrew Mackie (knee) today.
© 2007 The Age