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The crowd of 9434 is a record for Gather Round games at the inner-suburban Parade venue.<\/p>\n
Mark O’Connor kicked three goals – the first multiple-goal game in his 151-game career, and the Irishman had the better of an entertaining duel with No.1 draft pick Willem Duursma.<\/p>\n
Max Holmes had a polished game off half-back, racking up 34 possessions, while Tanner Bruhn and Tom Atkins were prolific in the midfield.<\/p>\n
Bailey Smith amassed 16 inside-50s and had 34 disposals, with seven clearances and a goal. .<\/p>\n
Young Eagles key forward Jobe Shanahan impressed again, kicking four goals, while Tom McCarthy had a team-high 28 disposals.<\/p>\n
There were multiple lead changes in the first half as the Eagles had the first four scoring shots, but only managed one goal.<\/p>\n
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While the Cats led by a goal at the first break, every time they looked like kicking clear the Eagles would respond.<\/p>\n
Young gun Harley Reid was prominent in the midfield and West Coast still had a one-point lead midway through the second term.<\/p>\n
Then Brad Close’s soccered shot was ruled a goal on video review, which sparked the Cats’ decisive surge.<\/p>\n
O’Connor snapped a stunning goal from 45m out and kicked his third soon after as the Cats dominated stoppages.<\/p>\n
Deven Robertson, who returned to the Eagles’ side from suspension, limped off in the last quarter with a knee injury.<\/p>\n
This was the first AFL game for Cats defender Jake Kolodjashnij since the 2024 preliminary final, and he had a solid duel with Eagles star Jake Waterman, who kicked a goal.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Geelong’s five-goal burst late in the first half has shaken off West Coast and set up their 46-point…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":601621,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-601620","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\/601620","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=601620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/601620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/601621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=601620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=601620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=601620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}