By John Van Klaveren
The pundits still don’t know how to rate Geelong.
Some have the Cats staying in the four, after making previous predictions of a slide only to end with a case of egg on face as rumours of Geelong’s demise were greatly exaggerated.
Others are renewing their belief that Geelong cannot continue to sustain its seventh year of excellence with the changing of the guard at the end of last season.
And the spate of injuries to key Cats has added to the drama.
Pre-season plans have all gone out the window and coaching staff will have been burning the midnight oil to re-jig the game strategy in the light of the personnel changes.
The silver lining to the injury cloud is that first round opponent Adelaide has suffered similar setbacks to key players, making this game a battle of the back-ups.
The sidelight to that will be the duel between discarded premiership forward James Podsiadly and – most likely – Tom Lonergan.
Pods will get his first game against his old side out of the way at the earliest opportunity, with Adelaide extra glad they have him and Geelong perhaps secretly wishing they had kept him, given both clubs face a dearth of tall forwards for this clash.
The game will also be memorable for Jimmy Bartel’s 250th outing, although the emotion of milestone games seems to unsettle the Cats.
The game will offer a good indication of how the blending of old and new will work out to see if the veteran professionals can pass along enough of their knowledge to keep the Cats landing on their feet.
