AFL great Jimmy Bartel says Geelong need to speed up their ball movement if they are to regain their winning mojo.
The Cats’ minor premiership hopes are in doubt after they slumped to a shock 34-point AFL loss to Fremantle on Saturday.
Geelong have lost four of their past seven matches and are no guarantee to finish in to the top two despite still clinging on to top spot.
They mustered only 43 inside 50s against the Dockers – a statistic that worried coach Chris Scott.
Geelong forward Tom Hawkins looked like he was ready to tear the game apart when he kicked three goals in the first term.
But supply dried up after that and he failed to kick another goal for the match.
Bartel, who won three premierships and a Brownlow medal during his decorated 305-game career with the Cats, said Geelong needed to move the ball quicker.
“Their ball movement has been a big problem,” Bartel told Channel Seven’s Game Day.
“They only played on nine per cent of the time from marks and free kicks, which is a pretty difficult thing to do.
“You almost accidentally get called play on that amount of time.
“Their ball movement is slow, which is really surprising.
“Because if you watch recent weeks, even though the side’s form has fluctuated, Tom Hawkins has been in great form, so you want to get it in there quicker.
“Even their skipper highlighted it as being boring football. That’s a way to describe it.
“They need to play with a bit more speed and give their forwards a greater opportunity.”
Geelong based themselves in Perth for a week in the build-up to Saturday’s game and players made the most of the conditions to explore the sites of Western Australia when they had free time.
Scott said it would be “superficial and cheap analysis” to blame their latest defeat on the decision to be based in Perth.
Bartel agreed.
“How dare they spend some down time with family and try someone new,” he said sarcastically.
“We don’t want players having fun or living a life. We want them to play on the weekend, we want to put them back in their padded cell and then release them on weekends. Isn’t that what we want?”
Gary Rohan injured his knee against the Dockers and looks set to miss Saturday’s crunch home clash with North Melbourne.
Harry Taylor will return after being rested.
