Cats Tie Up The List With A Sting In The Tail, Of Course

Geelong has gone and finalised its 2027 list, and true to form down there at Kardinia Park they couldn’t just do it the straightforward way – there had to be a twist in the final contract call, because that’s how footy operates now, not like the old days when a bloke signed on the dotted line and you knew where you stood for the next three years, full stop.

I’ll admit I had to read the news twice because these days list management is about as transparent as the VFL – sorry, AFL – tribunal system, which is to say not very. But from what I can gather the Cats have wrapped up their off-season business with one more tweak to the roster, a late change that’s got the finishing touches on what by all reports has been a genuinely busy summer down Geelong way.

The Cats Never Do Anything The Easy Way

Say what you like about Geelong – and as a Carlton man I’ve said plenty over the years, most of it unprintable in a family publication – but you can’t fault the club for its list management. They’ve been doing this better than most for the better part of two decades now, turning over personnel while somehow never actually looking like they’re rebuilding, which is a trick I wish my own club had mastered a long time ago.

This latest contract call, with its little twist, fits the pattern. Nothing at Geelong happens by accident. Every delisting, every rookie upgrade, every quiet one-year extension for a bloke in his thirties gets weighed up by football department staff who’ve clearly got more spreadsheets than a Treasury official, and in my day the list was basically whoever turned up to pre-season training and didn’t have a crook knee.

Back In My Day It Was A Handshake And A Carton

I don’t say that to be cute – I say it because the whole system now, with its soft caps and total player payments and father-son points and whatever other nonsense head office dreams up in Docklands, has turned list finalisation into a sort of annual chess match that takes months to resolve. Geelong, fair play to them, seem to play that chess match better than anyone, and this twist in the contract situation is just the latest proof.

Back in my day a club finalised its list by sticking a notice on the board at the social club and seeing who complained loudest. Now you need a list manager, an assistant list manager, a salary cap guru and probably a bloke who does nothing but model draft points on a laptop. I’m not saying it’s all bad – the game’s more professional, the players are fitter, nobody’s turning up to training with a durrie hanging out their mouth anymore – but there’s something about the cold calculation of it all that rubs an old bloke like me the wrong way.

What The Twist Actually Means For Geelong

Strip away my grumbling for a second and look at what this actually means on-field, because that’s what matters come the first bounce. A finalised list with a surprise element in the final call suggests the Cats have either found a bit of extra flexibility under the cap to do something they hadn’t planned, or they’ve had to make a call on a player that wasn’t universally expected – and either way, that’s the sort of nous that’s kept Geelong finals-bound more often than not this century.

Whether it’s a veteran getting an extra year he mightn’t have expected, a fringe player locked in when plenty tipped they’d be cut loose, or some clever bit of ressting on a contract to free up room elsewhere, the Cats have form in making these calls look obvious in hindsight even when they’re not obvious at all at the time. It’s the sort of list management that turns a middling list into a top-four one without anyone outside the club really noticing how it happened.

The Rest Of Us Can Only Watch On

As a Carlton man it pains me to admit it, but there’s a lesson in here for every other club in the competition, mine included. Geelong doesn’t panic. They don’t make knee-jerk trades in October because a fan forum’s gone off its head, and they don’t hand out five-year deals to blokes who’ve had one good finals series. They plan, they finalise, and then – and this is the bit that really gets me – they stick to the plan even when a twist comes along, instead of unravelling the whole thing in a fit of boardroom nerves.

You compare that to some of the carry-on we’ve seen at other clubs over the years, where a list gets finalised in July and reopened in September because some director’s had a wobbly, and it’s chalk and cheese. Geelong’s stability is the single biggest reason they keep fronting up in September while plenty of more talented lists on paper are home watching the finals from the couch.

Head Office Tinkering Doesn’t Help Anyone

Of course, I’d be remiss not to mention that half the reason list finalisation is such a convoluted business these days is because the AFL keeps mucking around with the rules governing it. Soft cap one year, mid-season draft the next, father-son bidding rules changed again – it’s like trying to hit a moving target, and clubs like Geelong who’ve got the smartest list management staff are the ones who benefit most from understanding the shifting goalposts better than their rivals.

I don’t love it. I think half this stuff is dreamed up by people who’ve never kicked a footy in anger and wouldn’t know a third-man-up rule if it bit them, but I’ll give credit where it’s due – Geelong navigate the mess better than most, and this final twist in their 2027 list is Exhibit A.

The Final Word

So there you have it – the Cats have tidied up their list, thrown in one last twist for good measure, and gone about their business with the sort of quiet efficiency that makes the rest of the competition, Carlton included, look a bit amateurish by comparison. I still reckon the whole system’s gone soft compared to the old VFL days, but if you’re going to play the modern game by the modern rules, you could do a lot worse than watching how Geelong goes about it.

Now if only my own club could finalise a list without it feeling like a soap opera, I might actually sleep easy during footy season for once.