Geelong forward Shannon Byrnes has emerged as the white-hot favourite to come into senior contention this week after a clinical performance in the VFL at Bellerive Oval on Saturday.

Byrnes lead a host of strong performances by Geelong’s abundance of fringe players, but it wasn’t enough to resist Tasmania’s rampaging final-quarter surge, with the Cats succumbing 15-11-101 to 18-17-125.

Coach Leigh Tudor praised the commitment of the small forward, who he said ticked all the necessary boxes in a standout 36-possession performance.

As competition for a place in Geelong’s senior team intensified, Byrnes bore the attributes of a player determined to prove a point after making way for Ryan Gamble last week.

His finishing was clean, his tackling was superb and his endeavourer was first class.

“I thought Shannon Byrnes, to come back, he’s always been an excellent VFL player, so to come back again and perform the way he has is a credit to him,” Tudor said.

Jason Davenport was in scintillating touch early in the game as a prolific ball winner through the midfield, but it was floating into attack where he had the most profound influence.

Davenport, promoted off the rookie list at the end of last season, was deadly accurate in front of goals and kicked all his four majors before half time.

Rookie-listed ruckman Shane Mumford continued to grow in stature with a powerful display in the ruck, in just his ninth match of VFL football.

The 21-year-old imposed himself both physically and mentally against the spirited Devils’ youngsters, as he accumulated 28 hit outs and 13 disposals.

Others to make an impression on Tudor were Adam Donohue, Travis Varcoe, Jack Hollmer and James Byrne.

Tudor said the strong performances by the fringe players was a testament to the depth at the club, but he gave the impression the side’s fortunes should not hinge entirely on those players every week.

“They’ve just got to keep putting their hands up and keep playing good footy, that’s what they can do.

“The only way they’re going to get a game of AFL football is if they play well in the VFL, it was good for a couple of individuals to play well, but as a team we’ve still got a fair way to go.”

Tudor said his side still has “got a little bit of work to do” to recapture a shadow of its sparkling aura from last season, pointing to midfield accountability as an area needing urgent attention.

However, the premiership coach remained adamant the Cats had shown vast improvement from their round one debacle against Coburg.

Tudor said after the 12-goal capitulation he might have caught a sobering glimpse of the way several matches could unfold this season, given the inexperienced list at his disposal.

“We’ve definitely improved, we’ve had outstanding improvement from the Coburg game, but today there were just a couple of little things we didn’t quite do well,” Tudor said.

“The boys have really showed that they’re willing to try and play the way we want them to play, but it just didn’t work out at times today.

“I just think our accountability through the midfield let us down today … we just seemed to be one or two metres off our man and we thought that was disappointing.

“We thought the effort most of the game was really there, but just some decision making at times let us down.”

Rugged defender David Johnson was a late withdrawal after pulling up with general soreness in the warm up, replaced by Newtown and Chilwell’s James McTaggart.

“The doctors decided in the warm up that it probably wasn’t the right thing to play,” Tudor said.

“We had James McTaggart on stand by, so we had the spare player, so it was the sensible thing to do playing James.”

Tudor vowed the Cats would deliver stronger vigour when they embark on toppling league heavyweight Williamstown at Skilled Stadium this Saturday.

The Western Bulldog-aligned Seagulls are in ominous touch and have emerged as one of the early premiership favourites after a faultless start to season.

“We expect Williamstown to be a top four side, so we expect that to be another really good challenge for us,” Tudor said.

“We’ll have another good week on the track and we’ll come out fighting again next week.”