Cats winning streak comes to an end

Geelong Cats v Collingwood Magpies, AFL 2023 round 1 Ben Jensen GEELONG’s 2023 season began with a loss to Collingwood, the Cats suffering their first loss since round 9 2022. Despite booting six goals in each of the first two quarters they ran out of puff in the final term failing to kick a goal while the accuracy of the first half also dropped away. Collingwood in contrast had no such trouble and piled on five goals in the final quarter to win by 22 points.

The game could hardly have started better for the Cats with Zach Tuohy booting two goals in the first four minutes. The Magpies quickly answered back with two of their own but were inaccurate, the Cats going into quarter time with six straight, the Magpies five three. The second quarter was a similar tale with the Cats again kicking six goals with just the one behind, the Magpies four goals three.

The match was marred by a game-ending knee injury to Cats vice captain Tom Stewart in the first quarter; worse was to come when Magpie defender Jeremy Howe suffered a broken arm in the third quarter. Howe flew for a mark and landed.. awkwardly, where he remained in agonising pain for some time before pain relief was able to be administered.

After Howe left the ground Geelong kicked two more goals but from then on Collingwood dominated, kicking the next and final eight goals of the match. The Cats could only pile on six behinds in the same period watching the match slip away.

New Cats Tanner Bruhn and Ollie Henry acquainted themselves well – the latter blotted his copybook against his former club several times, once taunting the crowd and later being mowed down in the goal square, ruining what should have been a certain goal had he better situational awareness.

While that brings to an end a ten month and 16 game winning streak to an end, one wag pointed out the Cats could still break their and the league’s all-time winning streak of 23 matches. After all there’s 22 more matches to go in the home and away season, with three finals to go – 25 wins are in sight!

AFL 2023 ROUND ONE
GEELONG CATS V COLLINGWOOD MAGPIES
FRIDAY 17 MARCH 2023, 19:40 AEST
MCG

COLLINGWOOD MAGPIES: 5.3, 9.6, 14.9, 19.11 (125) DEFEATED
GEELONG CATS: 6.0, 12.1, 16.3, 16.7 (103)

GOALS
COLLINGWOOD MAGPIES: Hill 3, De Goey 3, Mitchell 2, Mihocek 2, Cox 2, McCreery 2, McInnes 2, Pendlebury, McStay, Adams
GEELONG CATS: Tuohy 2, Stengle 2, Rohan 2, Hawkins 2, Cameron 2, Ollie Henry 2, Smith, Holmes, Dangerfield, Atkins

BEST
COLLINGWOOD MAGPIES: Nick Daicos, De Goey, Josh Daicos, Pendlebury, Noble, Mitchell, Hill
GEELONG CATS: Smith, Ratugolea, Cameron, Tuohy, Dangerfield

INJURIES
COLLINGWOOD MAGPIES: Jeremy Howe (broken arm)
GEELONG CATS: Tom Stewart (knee), Sam De Koning (knee)

CHANGES
COLLINGWOOD MAGPIES: –
GEELONG CATS: –

SUBSTITUTES
COLLINGWOOD MAGPIES: Brandan Parfitt; replaced Tom Stewart in second quarter
GEELONG CATS: Reef McInnes; replaced Jeremy Howe in third quarter

REPORTS
COLLINGWOOD MAGPIES: –
GEELONG CATS: –

CROWD: 86,595 at Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG), Melbourne

UMPIRES
FIELD Justin Power, Brett Rosebury, Robert O’Gorman, Nathan Williamson
BOUNDARY Josh Mather, Michael Marantelli, Damien Main, Christopher Gordon
GOAL Dylan Benwell, Matthew Dervan EM: David Rodan 

PREDICTIONS
Ben – Cats 50 points
Oscar – Cats 11 points
Cassie – Cats 28 points

GEELONG CATS – SELECTED SIDE
IN: N/A
OUT: N/A

B: O’Connor, De Koning, Ratugolea
HB: Smith, Stewart, Z.Guthrie
C: Blicavs, Holmes, Tuohy
HF: Stengle, Cameron, Miers
F: Henry, Hawkins, Rohan
FOLL: Stanley, C.Guthrie, Dangerfield
INT: Bews, Atkins, Bruhn, Close
EMER: Ceglar, Simpson, Parfitt, Whyte

COLLINGWOOD MAGPIES – SELECTED SIDE
IN: N/A
OUT: N/A

B: Quaynor, Howe, Maynard
HB: Hoskin-Elliott, Moore, N.Daicos
C: Noble, Crisp, Sidebottom
HF: Mitchell, De Goey, Hill
F: Mihocek, Elliott, McStay
FOLL: Cameron, J.Daicos, Adams
INT: Pendlebury, McCreery, Murphy, Cox
EMER: Frampton, McInnes, Carmichael, Markov