{"id":174568,"date":"2025-09-28T06:32:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T06:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/174568\/"},"modified":"2025-09-28T06:32:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T06:32:10","slug":"matthew-lloyd-reveals-geelong-cats-biggest-mistake-in-grand-final-loss-to-brisbane-lions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/174568\/","title":{"rendered":"Matthew Lloyd reveals Geelong Cats’ biggest mistake in grand final loss to Brisbane Lions"},"content":{"rendered":"

Essendon<\/a> great Matthew Lloyd<\/a> believes Geelong<\/a> made a tactical mistake by bringing in ruckman Rhys Stanley to replace injured defender Tom Stewart for the grand final.<\/p>\n

The Cats were having great success with Mark Blicavs handling the ruck duties across finals, while Stanley was sidelined with a hamstring injury. <\/p>\n

However, with Stewart out they made the call to bring back the 34-year-old over a like-for-like type in Jed Bews or a substitute option in Ollie Henry.<\/p>\n

READ MORE: Lions gun faces enormous free agency call amid concussion fallout<\/a><\/p>\n

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Brisbane<\/a> dominated the clearances on Saturday, which ultimately helped separate the two teams, while Stanley and Blicavs both had minimal impact on the game, both as ruckmen and as forwards.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Rhys Stanley of the Cats during the AFL Grand Final \u00a0via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Lloyd believes Geelong coach Chris Scott would want a re-do with that selection call.<\/p>\n

“I have a theory that you don’t try anything in finals that you haven’t already tried throughout the season, you just don’t do it,” Lloyd told Nine’s Sunday Footy Show.<\/p>\n

“One of them was Nick Watson in the prelim. He played backline when he’s never played there before.<\/p>\n

“Mark Blicavs has been dominant in the first two finals in the ruck. He’s a unique ruckman because he’s like a rover the way he gets back on the ball.<\/p>\n

“What they did wrong in my opinion was when Stanley or Blicavs weren’t rucking, they were played forward.<\/p>\n

“I haven’t seen Blicavs or Stanley play as a permanent forward at all throughout the season. Both of them had no idea how to play in the forward line. They have not been there for one second throughout the year.<\/p>\n

“I just think by bringing in Stanley, that threw out what has been a major weapon in the finals series.<\/p>\n

“Or bring him in, but play Blicavs in the backline when he’s resting, not forward.<\/p>\n

“They got smashed at the clearances without him there permanently.” <\/p>\n

Former Adelaide captain Rory Sloane agrees, saying it impacted Geelong’s ability to apply pressure around the ball.<\/p>\n

“You lose an absolute weapon in Blicavs. His ability to follow up after the ruck, win the ground ball and pressure too.”<\/p>\n

“That’s something we saw last week, his pressure was enormous and that’s something that Geelong lacked massively.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Chris Scott, Senior Coach of the Cats looks on during the AFL Grand Final\u00a0via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Lloyd also feels the Cats sat on their sub for too long, not injecting forward Jack Martin into the game until it was too late.<\/p>\n

Geelong subbed Stanley out for Martin at three quarter time, rolling the dice with key forward Jeremy Cameron, who had fractured his arm earlier in the game. <\/p>\n

“I loved that Chris Fagan pulled the trigger on Lachie Neale with the scores tied at half time,” Lloyd said.<\/p>\n

“But why did Jack Martin sit there for so long and why did Jeremy Cameron play with a fractured arm?<\/p>\n

“I think Martin had to be injected with the game on the line. Cameron was struggling.<\/p>\n

“I think they could sense the game was getting away from them.”<\/p>\n

The Lions would pile on 13 goals to six after half time to blow the margin out to 47 points in the end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Essendon great Matthew Lloyd believes Geelong made a tactical mistake by bringing in ruckman Rhys Stanley to replace…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":174569,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-174568","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australian-football-league","12":"tag-australianfootballleague","13":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174568","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=174568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/174569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}