AFL finals 2022: Geelong Cats star Patrick Dangerfield has been preparing his body and mind for GF moment

No club knows the importance of peaking at the right time of the year more than Geelong. Despite their stunning record of consistency, including a remarkable 12 preliminary final appearances in the past 16 seasons, the Cats’ finals stumbles have served to sharpen their focus on the month that matters — September. When Geelong came to Perth to play West Coast in round 14, they left Patrick Dangerfield at home despite the 32-year-old having apparently been “training really well” after recovering from a calf injury. Coach Chris Scott had the long game in mind. “We just don’t feel that going to Perth this week justifies the interruption to his training for the preparation for what will be I think the last nine games of the season for him,” Scott said at the time. Perhaps he had in mind something like Dangerfield’s preliminary final performance last Friday night, when the Brownlow medallist starred with 28 touches, two goals and eight clearances. Scott was beaming after his ageing star turned in his best game of the season. “He’s in really good shape,” he said. “Compared to where he’s been previously, it’s chalk and cheese. He’s a bit older, but he goes into the biggest game of the year in the best shape he’s been in for years.” Scott attributed Dangerfield’s physical condition to the club’s medical staff, among other factors. “A brilliant medical staff, a couple of people in particular,” he said. “They’ve just done an outstanding job with him. I spoke about our medical team last week with Jeremy Cameron. It’s just so comforting as a coach to ask a question and completely believe the answer. “Post-COVID world a little bit. We had eight weeks in the first lockdown where (Dangerfield) wasn’t able to get treatment and that didn’t help him, in my opinion. “And a bit of luck. You always need a bit of luck. And there are other reasons too. I mean he’s the ultimate competitor, great preparer, team man. All that sort of stuff.” So did Scott ever doubt his prized recruit could recapture his explosive best? “I didn’t,” he said. “And neither did he. But we knew it was going to take some work.” Dangerfield played 15 of 22 regular season matches, missing four straight games around the mid-season bye with calf issues and two matches earlier in the season with a corked calf. Caution was again the order of the day ahead of the round 21 win over St Kilda when Dangerfield was withdrawn after the pre-match warm-up after feeling calf tightness. “It’s just good to feel fresh and ready to go,” he said this week. “But even if you didn’t, it’s a grand final. So it doesn’t really matter how you feel. It’s what you do. It’s how you perform and that’s ahead of us.” Dangerfield awaits his moment of truth in his 303rd game, having been part of the Cats’ outfit that lost the 2020 decider to Richmond after leading by 22 points. He has also been a part of five losing preliminary final teams, including one at Adelaide in 2012. When Fremantle legend Matthew Pavlich left the game, he was adamant his lack of a premiership wouldn’t haunt or define him. “It would have been nice to have won one. But it’s not going to define my time at Fremantle,” Pavlich said ahead of his farewell game. “If that’s all that mattered to me, then the last 17 seasons and all of the energy and effort I put into this place in creating a culture would be worth nothing.” It was an assessment that jarred with Dangerfield’s single-minded obsession with his flag quest being an all-or-nothing pursuit. “I remember listening to Matty Pavlich and it’s etched in my memory,” Dangerfield said in 2019. “Everyone’s different obviously. But if I put myself in that position, I don’t think I could ever feel really satisfied when all you’ve ever tried to do is get to there. “I don’t think I will be fulfilled unless I win a premiership. Imagine that feeling, when the lights go down, everyone’s gone home and it’s just you and the team having done everything you set out to do nine months prior. Total fulfilment. “Imagine feeling totally fulfilled. Because when you’ve won a Brownlow, that just doesn’t happen.” Three years and a grand final loss on from those comments, it is a more circumspect veteran preparing to face Sydney at the MCG on Saturday. Dangerfield says it took him a while to get out of a “dark cave” he was in following the 2020 defeat and that both he and the team have learned to not put too much pressure on themselves. “It’s a different team, it’s a different time,” he said. “You understand the occasion. You don’t try and build it up too much, because it is a game, we’ve played a lot of them this year. We know clearly what’s at stake. But it’s not making it so big that you feel insignificant compared to the task at hand. It’s keeping that front of mind.”