Geelong rediscovered its ruthless premiership best with a near-perfect 93-point thrashing of Sydney.
After cantering to a 81-point win over the Swans in last year’s decider, the Cats left more scars on John Longmire’s team with another obliteration on a night they unfurled their 10th premiership flag at GMHBA Stadium.
Apart from a brief period of resistance from the Swans late in the second quarter on Saturday, Geelong were in always in control to shell-shock the visitors with extreme pressure and triumph 20.10 (130) to 5.7 (37).
It was the Swans’ heaviest defeat in 289 games under Longmire, eclipsing the 89-point belting to Hawthorn in 2015 as they added a meagre 0.3 in the second half.
Star Geelong forwards Tom Hawkins (five goals) and Jeremy Cameron (five) took full advantage of the Swans’ decimated defence without Paddy McCartin, Tom McCartin and Dane Rampe.
Callum Mills, who began his career as a defender, started on Hawkins in a clear height and weight mismatch, but the experiment ended midway through the third quarter when the Swans co-captain shifted back into the midfield.
Cameron continued his extraordinary start to the season as arguably the best player in the AFL to be firmly in Brownlow Medal contention.
The match started in ominous fashion for the Swans when Geelong’s Sam Simpson, who has battled concussion issues, booted the opening goal and was mobbed by teammates to the delight of the parochial Cats crowd.
The Cats stormed to a 27-point lead at quarter-time, before breaking Sydney’s spirit in the third term to take a 78-point advantage into the final change.
This was equal to anything they produced during their spellbinding 16-game winning-streak to claim last year’s flag in a performance that will gives rivals across the AFL shudders.
“It’s rare to play that well against such a good team,” Geelong coach Chris Scott said.
“We feel like we’ve been building so it wasn’t like the good performance from our end was completely unexpected.
“We also acknowledge the challenges Sydney have got – it’s a rare situation when we’ve got a couple of dominant key forwards against the team that’s just been decimated in terms of their key defensive stocks.”
Geelong have levelled the ledger at 3-3 after opening their premiership defence in shaky fashion with consecutive defeats to Collingwood, Carlton and Gold Coast.
Legendary captain Joel Selwood, who retired after 355 games and four premierships following last year’s premiership, returned to lead the unveiling of the flag before the match.
He was joined by 2011 premiership skipper Cameron Ling and Geelong’s AFLW captain Meg McDonald.
On a disastrous night for the Swans, they lost youngster Matt Roberts to a knee issue during the second term to add to their mounting injury list.
Longmire said the performance was “hard to put into words”.
“We needed to push back and compete harder than that. They were very good at it. They’re very good footy club. And normally we show a bit more than that so it was disappointing,” he said.
“It just wasn’t the standard that we normally apply or the standard the game really requires.”
