{"id":377035,"date":"2024-03-17T05:18:33","date_gmt":"2024-03-17T06:18:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=377035"},"modified":"2024-03-17T20:05:28","modified_gmt":"2024-03-17T20:05:28","slug":"lloyd-lauds-cats-unlikely-hero-in-scrappy-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=377035","title":{"rendered":"Lloyd lauds Cats' unlikely hero in scrappy victory"},"content":{"rendered":"

M\ufeffatthew Lloyd<\/a> has heaped praise on young Geelong<\/a> forward Ollie Dempsey, who booted three goals to guide the Cats to a scrappy eight-point victory over St Kilda on Saturday night.<\/p>\n

The Cats opened their new Joel Selwood Stand<\/a>, increasing the capacity of GMHBA to 40,000, a far cry from the old days down the highway.<\/p>\n

A crowd of 39,352 packed \ufeffout the stadium, with Dempsey, who has played just eight games, coming into his own in front of the Geelong faithful.<\/p>\n

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It wasn't a pretty win for Geelong \u2013 the Saints surged from nearly four goals down to draw within one point with just minutes remaining in the final term. Geelong captain Patrick Dangerfield iced the game with a gutsy goal.<\/p>\n

\"Ollie<\/p>\n

However, it wasn't Dangerfield's heroics that caught Lloyd's eye.<\/p>\n

Instead, he believes 21-year-old Dempsey \u2013 who also collected 15 disposals and took seven marks \u2013 is the Cats' new hope.<\/p>\n

The Carey Grammar product was selected by Geelong with pick 15 in the 2022 rookie draft\ufeff, now likely locking in his spot at the top level, alongside some of the Cats' greatest forwards.<\/p>\n

"The development program at Geelong. They just keep finding players\ufeff that they take late in drafts," Lloyd said on Nine's Sunday AFL Footy Show.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Ollie<\/p>\n

"Whether it's Mark O'Connor, \ufeffwhether it's Ollie Dempsey.<\/p>\n

"Last night, I thought he was the most influential player on the ground\ufeff when they set up the win.<\/p>\n

"He's got class, \ufeffhe's confident in himself, he knows where the goals are, he sets them up and he creates them."<\/p>\n

Lloyd, who booted 926 goals for Essendon over his illustrious career, praised Geelong's ability to pick the unlikely players and develop them into genuine superstars of the modern game.\ufeff<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/GeelongCats\/status\/1768976684961972326<\/a><\/p>\n

"What I love about it is they (Geelong) do an apprenticeship (on draftees)," Lloyd said.<\/p>\n

"Because they've been so strong, sometimes they have to do a development. Or they get a guy like Tanner Bruhn, who has done his development at another club (GWS)."<\/p>\n

However, Lloyd knows the Cats have some serious work to do if they are to push back into September contention in 2024, with St Kilda almost snatching victory from the jaws of defeat.\ufeff<\/p>\n

"I thought the Saints could have won that game last night\ufeff. I thought they were coming home like a steam train, but they just don't have the ability to score enough goals," he said.<\/p>\n

Geelong now head to South Australia to take on Adelaide, while St Kilda will look to get their first victory on the board over the winless reigning premiers, Collingwood.\ufeff<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

M\ufeffatthew Lloyd has heaped praise on young Geelong forward Ollie Dempsey, who booted three goals to guide the Cats to a scrappy eight-point victory over […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":377004,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377035"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=377035"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377035\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":377039,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377035\/revisions\/377039"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/377004"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=377035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=377035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=377035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}