Cats scratch out a win against determined Saints in a thriller

It was close all night but Geelong notches a crucial round one win over St Kilda

By AAP with Howard Kimber

Oliver Dempsey celebrates during the round one match between Geelong and St Kilda at GMHBA Stadium, March 16, 2024. Picture: AFL Photos

GEELONG has held off a determined St Kilda to start 2024 with a 10.16 (76) to 9.14 (68) win at GMHBA Stadium on Saturday night.

The Cats looked switched on from the outset but couldn’t take their chances early, allowing the Saints to stay in the contest and then take it right up to the home team through till the final siren.

CATS v SAINTS Full match coverage and stats

Geelong dominated the opening stanza but it was St Kilda – with its first inside 50 – that kicked the opening goal through Tim Membrey in his return after missing last year’s elimination final loss.

Things stayed close before the Cats managed four goals in a row to hold a 24-point lead early in the second term and again looked like pulling further away, but Ross Lyon’s side wasn’t about to quit and kept chipping away at the gap.

The margin closed to just one point early in the final quarter before three successive majors to the Cats looked like putting the result beyond doubt, but again the Saints came.

Goals to Cooper Sharman and then Max King made it seven points, then a King pass to Darcy Wilson saw the debutant kick his second, again bringing it down to the smallest of margins.

In the end it was Patrick Dangerfield who settled the contest with a set shot that denied St Kilda what would have been an extremely rare win at Geelong.

More to come

Ollie, Ollie, Ollie, oy, oy, oy!After two games in his debut season of 2022, Oliver Dempsey was handed five more last year, three of which he started as Geelong’s sub, and sat with just two career goals from those first seven matches. However, he showed enough at VFL level to get a two-year contract extension, and if anyone thought the Cats jumped early, they will have lost those doubts on Saturday night. Dempsey kicked three goals for the night and proved a real point of difference in a forward line dominated for so long by Jack Hawkins and Jeremy Cameron. Add in an obvious joyful exuberance and it looks like there’s yet another crowd favourite at GMHBA Stadium.

25 years and countingGeelong’s home ground has always been one of the league’s most formidable ‘fortresses’, but no team has suffered inside the Kardinia Park gates like St Kilda, the club not having saluted down the highway this century, their last win coming in round 10, 1999. With two minutes left in the match and all the momentum behind them, it looked like the curse of the 21st century was going to be broken in spectacular fashion, but ultimately the Saints were once again denied.

GEELONG    2.3    6.7    6.13    10.16 (76)ST KILDA    1.5    4.6     5.9      9.14 (68)

GOALSGeelong: Dempsey 3, Cameron 2, Close, Dangerfield, Tuohy, O.Henry, HawkinsSt Kilda: Membrey 3, Wilson 2, King 2, Phillipou, Sharman

BESTGeelong: Holmes, Dangerfield, Dempsey, Stewart, Cameron, DuncanSt Kilda: Wnaganeen-Milera, Steele, Marshall, Membrey, Bonner, King

INJURIESGeelong: TBCSt Kilda: Stocker (back)

NO LATE CHANGES

SUBSTITUTESGeelong: Shaun Mannagh, replaced Tyson Stengle at three-quarter timeSt Kilda: Lance Collard, replaced Seb Ross in the third quarter.

Crowd: TBC at GMHBA Stadium