Fremantle ruckman Sean Darcy looms as a major stumbling block in Geelong’s quest to get back onto the winner’s list.
The in-form big man tore Sydney to shreds last week along with Luke Jackson booting three goals and Cats’ coach Chris Scott knows what sort of an influence they can have on a game.
“So much of AFL footy at the moment is timing in terms of when you play teams and its logical to think that there was going to be a period where they need to feel each other out and work on their cohesion and connection and almost half way through the season they appear to be getting that so that’s bad luck to us,” he said.
“They’re a big challenge. Darcy in particular is spending a lot of time in the ruck, he’s a big ruckman and I’ve got a high regard for him so it’s a big job for, not only for Jonathon Ceglar, but all our taller guys.”
Geelong travels to Perth to take on the Dockers tomorrow.
Freo has won two in a row in impressive style while Geelong stumbled to a resurgent Richmond last Friday night.
Injury-riddled Dockers’ star Nat Fyfe has had two encouraging performances as a sub under his belt and Scott said he is planning for him to play a full game.
“We are planning for him to be in the 22,” he said.
“He’s a little bit harder to plan for than maybe he has been in the past because they’ve earmarked him as a forward through the pre-season and I know firsthand what a quality player he can be in that part of the ground but I wouldn’t be surprised to see him spend decent stints in the midfield as well.
Patrick Dangerfield won’t play, but isn’t far off.
“[He’s] going really well,” Scott said.
“He moved really well at training today. We’re obviously going to hold him back, we’ve been really clear about that. Not sure exactly where it is except to say that we always thought it would be pre-bye somewhere.
“Not this week, but after this week we’ve only got two weeks pre-bye, so it’s still looking somewhere in that time frame.”
