With the return of the To The Final Bell podcast for season 2023 comes a new segment: Question Without Notice.
No preparation, no pre-production meeting insight, just off the cuff, between the eyes, questions between co-hosts.
This week, Meg McDonald kicked it off with a tough one for premiership skipper, Cameron Ling.
Who is the Cats’ most irreplaceable player?
Not usually a man lost for words, it was enough to knock the famous #45 off balance for a moment before he regained his composure and almost, almost, sat squarely on the fence before settling on Jeremy Cameron.
“I think... after last season and where he went to, which was just a whole new stratosphere, it's Jeremy Cameron," Ling said after a long pause.
‘So, Blitz (Mark Blicavs) is my next choice for everything he allows around him. He allows defenders to set up a certain way, he allows wingers to run a certain pattern, and he allows mids to do what they do all around his movement and moves. And the coaches utilise that to get a tactical advantage wherever he is needed and communicate really well with him so he can call that.”
But despite making a close to an air-tight case for Blicavs, Ling rounded back to Cameron, citing an unmatchable fear factor among opposition defenders.
“So Blitz provides that, but then there's something special about a Jeremy Cameron who for two minutes you can throw into the middle of the ground and go, 'it's been a bit of an arm wrestle in the middle, we just need something to break our way,' Jezz can go in there and get it.
"Or he is one-out inside forward 50 and the opposition defenders, every one of them is panicking and looking over their shoulder and going 'we can't leave that'.
"So I think Jez and Tom Hawkins’ selflessness makes it all work superbly, but I think the fear factor now for Jez from opposition teams.. ‘yeah but what if he just rips this next seven minutes apart’ means others are reacting to Jez, so I think it's him."
Listen in to this week's episode to hear who Meg cited as her most irreplaceable Cat, it might surprise some, and the two debate who will take retiring captain Joel Selwood’s minutes.
All that and more on To The Final Bell, the official Geelong Cats podcast.
