{"id":154242,"date":"2025-09-19T11:29:14","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T11:29:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/154242\/"},"modified":"2025-09-19T11:29:14","modified_gmt":"2025-09-19T11:29:14","slug":"geelong-cats-vs-hawthorn-hawks-second-preliminary-final-live-scores-and-stats-updates-blog-teams-start-time-aest-and-how-to-stream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/154242\/","title":{"rendered":"Geelong Cats vs Hawthorn Hawks, Second Preliminary Final, live scores and stats, updates, blog, teams, start time AEST and how to stream"},"content":{"rendered":"

Geelong and Hawthorn will rekindle their mouth-watering rivalry<\/a> on Friday night in an MCG preliminary final, each side now just one win away from a grand final berth.<\/p>\n

And Friday\u2019s clash started with a bang as the Hawks hit the scoreboard hard before the Cats were rocked by the exit<\/a> of their vice-captain.<\/p>\n

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In a massive blow for the Cats – and an even bigger blow should they reach the 2025 AFL Grand Final – superstar Tom Stewart was ruled out with concussion, meaning he won\u2019t feature next Saturday should they qualify.<\/p>\n

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Alarmingly for Hawthorn, Mabior Chol could be in hot water for the tackle that injured Stewart – putting his own grand final hopes at risk should the Hawks make it.<\/p>\n

\u201cMassive news for Geelong,\u201d Fox Footy\u2019s Jon Ralph said.<\/p>\n

Cats star Tom Stewart was left in agony.Source: FOX SPORTS<\/p>\n

\u201c(Stewart) been subbed out with concussion and clearly would miss a potential grand final.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe worried about a wrist injury. Very quickly as he left the ground it was apparent he had a wobble in his step.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly minutes later, he was ruled out by Geelong.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is exactly the kind of incident we worried about with the pre-finals bye instead of a pre-grand final bye.<\/p>\n

\u201cMabior Chol will be looked at given the concussion. It is a pinned arm tackle \u2013 the AFL asks a player to release at least one of those arms.<\/p>\n

\u201cA huge blow for Geelong.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite the loss of Stewart, it was the Cats who fought back from 21 points down to take a one-point lead into the main break.<\/p>\n

Watch it live on Fox Footy (channel 504), and streaming on Kayo, from 6:30pm AEST.<\/p>\n

Follow our live coverage of the Second Preliminary Final between Geelong and Hawthorn below!<\/p>\n

Grinning Ginnivan grabs early goal! | 00:45<\/p>\n

The Cats had earned their spot in the penultimate round of the 2025 fixture thanks to a cruising 38-point victory over reigning premiers Brisbane in their qualifying final<\/a>, leaving them primed and refreshed for tonight\u2019s do-or-die match.<\/p>\n

14 is the eye-watering number of times Geelong has reached this stage of the finals in the last 19 years, however recently the fixture has been a daunting one for them.<\/p>\n

Six of Chris Scott\u2019s last eight preliminary finals have been losses dating back to 2013, with wins only in 2020 and 2022 \u2014 the latter their most recent premiership.<\/p>\n

As for Sam Mitchell\u2019s Hawks, they\u2019ve reached the final four the long way around. A heart-stopping elimination final win over GWS<\/a> in western Sydney set them up superbly to roll over Adelaide in a semi-final last Friday night.<\/a><\/p>\n

It won\u2019t feel like it to a lot of rival fans, but this is actually Hawthorn\u2019s first preliminary final appearance in a decade \u2014 with straight sets finals exits in 2016 and 2018, before their most recent finals cameo last year where they were heartbreakingly knocked out by Port Adelaide with a three-point loss.<\/p>\n

Both sides enter tonight\u2019s match unchanged<\/a> from their last, with Jack Ginnivan and Jack Gunston passing fitness tests on their hamstring soreness at Hawthorn.<\/p>\n

And despite heavy speculation emergency Rhys Stanley would be a late inclusion for the Cats, the veteran ruck has not been called upon. <\/p>\n

The winner of tonight\u2019s match will play one of Collingwood or Brisbane in the grand final next Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n

The first bounce will hit the MCG turf at 7:40pm AEST in Melbourne, with Jhye Clark (Cats) and Changkuoth Jiath (Hawks) the starting substitutes.<\/p>\n

PRELIMINARY FINAL TEAMS<\/p>\n

CATS<\/p>\n

B: C.O\u2019Sullivan, S.De Koning, J.Henry<\/p>\n

HB: M.O\u2019Connor, T.Stewart, Z.Guthrie<\/p>\n

C: J.Bowes, M.Holmes, O.Dempsey<\/p>\n

HF: B.Close, S.Mannagh, T.Stengle<\/p>\n

F: S.Neale, J.Cameron, P.Dangerfield (c)<\/p>\n

FOLL: M.Blicavs, B.Smith, T.Atkins<\/p>\n

I\/C: L.Humphries, O.Mullin, G.Miers, J.Martin, J.Clark (sub)<\/p>\n

EMG: R.Stanley, J.Bews, O.Henry<\/p>\n

HAWKS<\/p>\n

B: J.Battle, T.Barrass, B.Hardwick<\/p>\n

HB: J.Impey, J.Sicily (c), M.D\u2019Ambrosio<\/p>\n

C: K.Amon, J.Ward, D.Moore<\/p>\n

HF: J.Weddle, M.Chol, N.Watson<\/p>\n

F: J.Gunston, M.Lewis, C.Macdonald<\/p>\n

FOLL: L.Meek, J.Newcombe, C.Nash<\/p>\n

I\/C: J.Scrimshaw, J.Worpel, S.Butler, J.Ginnivan, C.Jiath (sub)<\/p>\n

EMG: J.Serong, C.Mackenzie, N.Reeves<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Geelong and Hawthorn will rekindle their mouth-watering rivalry on Friday night in an MCG preliminary final, each side…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":154243,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,689,55,639,12923,7802,103142,13659,11288,98414,4517,103141,7492,103143,8401,12102,103139,3465,647,103140,673,677,6082,19095,87591,102116,74197,19071,12936,1124,85,93970,670,660],"class_list":["post-154242","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-chris-scott","tag-final-teams","tag-finals-cameo","tag-geelong-cats","tag-grand-final","tag-grand-final-berth","tag-hamstring-injury","tag-hamstring-soreness","tag-hawthorn-hawks","tag-heart-stopping-elimination-final","tag-jack-ginnivan","tag-jack-gunston","tag-jeff-smith","tag-leigh-montagna","tag-melbourne","tag-mouth-watering-rivalry","tag-new-south-wales","tag-oceania","tag-port-adelaide","tag-preliminary-final","tag-preliminary-final-appearance","tag-preliminary-final-teams","tag-preliminary-finals","tag-rhys-stanley","tag-sam-mitchell","tag-south-australia","tag-sports","tag-straight-sets-finals","tag-sydney","tag-victoria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=154242"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/154242\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/154243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=154242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=154242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=154242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}