Patrick Dangerfield has denied suggestions he was injured or not fully-fit in the AFL grand final after the Geelong captain was unusually quiet against the Brisbane Lions. The 35-year-old had one of the all-time finals games in the prelim against Hawthorn, leading the Cats into the decider.
But he was largely unsighted in Saturday’s grand final, producing just 10 disposals with no clearances and no goals. Dangerfield left the field a number of times and was involved in a heavy collision with Jeremy Cameron in the second quarter that resulted in a broken arm for his teammate.
But speaking after the game, Dangerfield wasn’t making any excuses and brushed away suggestions he wasn’t 100 per cent. “No, it’s a ruthless game,” he said. “So there’s no excuses from me or anyone. We just couldn’t quite get it done.”
Patrick Dangerfield has denied suggestions he was injured in the AFL grand final. Image: Getty
Patrick Dangerfield says no need for Geelong to panic
Dangerfield received widespread praise for his runner-up speech just minutes after having his premiership dream shattered. He later said Geelong will have to “sit in” the disappointment of their grand final capitulation after being level at half-time.
“The hard part is there’s no guarantees in any given season,” Dangerfield said after the 47-point loss. “It’s everyone that starts again from the blocks, and just because you’ve had a reasonable season one year, there are no guarantees the next.
“So I think it’s important that you sit in it for a little bit, that as difficult as it may be, together this piece is really important. It’s something that we’ve always done really well as an organisation, regardless of the results, but particularly when we’ve lost big games of footy. The club’s always given us a great opportunity to threaten to compete, and I’m sure they’ll give us an opportunity again.”
Patrick Dangerfield looks on after Geelong’s loss to Brisbane. (Photo by James Wiltshire/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
Dangerfield is confident the Cats won’t fall off the cliff like Sydney did this year after their 60-point loss in the 2024 decider. “I think it’s going to hang around regardless,” he said. “That’s the feeling you get when you make it to the last day of September and you don’t quite get there.
“When you make it this far and then you don’t quite execute, you don’t need to throw everything away. That can be the external noise, but fundamentally there’s some few shifts here and there, some areas we didn’t quite execute that we’ve executed so well throughout the season. So that’s not all doom and gloom in terms of the bigger picture, in terms of what we need to go after and what we need to improve.”
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Josh Dunkley reveals staggering extent of ankle injury
Meanwhile, Lions midfielder Josh Dunkley has revealed he played in his third AFL premiership with an ankle injury so severe that it’ll need surgery. Dunkley suffered the injury in the preliminary final against Collingwood, and revealed after Saturday’s grand final it’s a grade-three syndesmosis that would normally be 6-8 weeks out.
“That’s a six-to-eight-week injury – under the knife normally, the next week,” Dunkley admitted. “I got a call from the doc (early this week) and he said to me ‘you’re not going to miss, we’ll get you up for it’. That’s part of being an AFL player, you put up with injuries.”
with AAP