Round 1 2025 — The Smithening

5 min readMar 20, 2025

I posted my last blog on the Cats on June 6 2023 — a marvel at how we’d beaten the Western Bulldogs with no midfield to speak of — and it’s fair to say a heap has changed since then.

Within days of that post going up we found out my partner was pregnant with twins, and the workload related to that and keeping myself afloat in every other part of my life meant I had to abandon the blogging.

Footy naturally continued apace; the Cats limped to 12th that year and then made — and nearly won — a prelim almost entirely on muscle memory.

The footy landscape has changed too: Collingwood made an art form of professionalism on their way to a flag, Brisbane finally completed their long build story arc by blasting the Swans last year, Hawthorn have loled and lmaoed their way back to relevance, Carlton have risen, fallen, risen, fallen and cancelled an SEN membership day, and Melbourne seemed to finally bend far enough to break last year.

Things changed off-field as well, with the new broadcast deal in place meaning that Channel 7 have replaced live Saturday games with a heap of new weeknight shows, Fox Footy are calling every game themselves, and about a thousand new podcasts and Youtube channels have popped up.

I also lost my own job on the eve of the season, which has been a tough blow to absorb (if you have a job you need filling, I will do it). The silver lining — I guess — is that now I have time to pick up this blog again.

Baz gonna give it to ya

The passage of time has inevitably meant the Cats look a bit different to how I left them.

Amongst the players who were in the Geelong side that night and are no longer at the club were premiership players Tom Hawkins, Gary Rohan, Isaac Smith and Zach Tuohy; and it was the last game in the hoops for Jonathon Ceglar and Sam Simpson (who were actually substituted for one another).

Of the 16 players who played in both that match and against Freo last week though, the one who dominated headlines before, during, and since was actually playing for the Dogs at the time.

And when I say before, I don’t just mean immediately prior to the game — Bailey Smith being linked to Geelong was a narrative that dominated 2024, to the point that it developed its own spin off conspiracy theories about his personal relationship with Cats sponsor Cotton On and the kind of fiscal subterfuge that guys with blue ticks like to imagine Elon Musk is uncovering in the US government at the moment.

This was all exacerbated by the ACL injury that prevented him from playing a single game for the Dogs last year, which meant that the information vacuum extended to how good he’d actually be at playing football when he actually got on the park.

As it turns out we didn’t need to worry – Bazlenka blew out the cobwebs with a debut statement of intent. He personally ran the whole of Freo’s midfield off their legs early and late with a display that highlighted just how good an addition he will be to this side. I knew he’d likely be Geelong’s best pure midfielder immediately but I had no idea how just how badly we needed him – his constant movement, link play, intensity, presence and vitality were all elements the Cats had been missing for a couple of seasons, and he brought it all in one package.

Adam Simpson explained it brilliantly on 360:

Smith almost rebalanced the midfields himself – Fremantle were +1 in disposals across the game, a far cry from the +90, +36 and +106(!) the last three times we played them.

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At the risk of looking like I’m going overboard, obviously I know that this isn’t the template for Baz going forward. He’s not ultra-classy by foot, most opposition won’t be as supine as Freo strangely were across the day, and he won’t be allowed to run wild by other teams who are awake to him.

But as it stands it’s arguably the best debut I’ve seen for a player in the hoops since Patrick Dangerfield exploded against Hawthorn on Easter Monday in 2016.

All the rest of it

Speaking of Danger, I think it was pretty telling they felt comfortable enough to play him up forward as much as they did. That’s a match up that will give some small and medium defenders some headaches.

Sam de Koning as number one ruck excites me greatly. Has the athleticism, nous and creativity to really tear games to shreds from there.

Given this blog will be my main outlet for footy stuff this year by the looks of thing, I’m going to cast my eye over the rest of the comp at the bottom of each blog. Today I’m just gonna give my opinion on what I think is legit and what I’m not buying quite yet.

LEGIT:

I reckon Port have messed up the coaching transition a bit. I know Ken Hinkley’s side tends to perform better when they have their backs against the wall, but I suspect they’ve muddied the waters a bit too much here. I wonder if Ken’s impending availability could lead to a team that might be underperforming this year to try and convince him across early?
Carlton need to find a way to be better than the sum of their parts, and quickly. Their list is good enough – veritably stuffed with All-Australians – but they seem to have no canniness or ability to think on their feet. They basically invented a way to lose to Richmond last week. It’s a long season but they’re 2–8 in their last 10 with the wins against North and West Coast.
Gold Coast have to be legit this time right? Away wins, some quality in the door in the off-season, Ben King taking hangers… it has to happen surely?
Hawthorn are fair dinkum. Do we finally get the 08 rematch this year…? 👀

NOT SOLD:

Generally positive reviews of Melbourne’s performance against GWS, and it’s fair to say they copped an insane Toby Greene quarter. But the fact is they couldn’t kick a big enough score to win despite having good numbers in plenty of key indicators, which sounds familiar. Not convinced they’re back, but Clarry’s form was heartening.
On the flip side, GWS look to have learnt from last year’s finals but it doesn’t exactly feel a sustainable style of play. Hawthorn in Tassie in two weeks looks a huge game.
Collingwood crushing Port looks good on paper but the Pies have dominated them extremely thoroughly at the G the last couple of years so I’m not sure how much we learnt. They’re in a position demographically where every game will feel like a referendum which will be hard not to get sucked up into, but I’d hold fire on this one.
I’m giving Freo a mulligan for that one. Probably unfair to hold Carlton to a higher standard given the Dockers were incredibly disappointing at the end of last season as well, but getting whacked by Geelong in Geelong has to be worse than shipping a big lead to Richmond.