DESPITE kicking a goal-of-the-year contender in Geelong’s win over Gold Coast, dashing defender David Wojcinski has only seen his effort twice on replay.
One viewing of his goal after a multi-bounce run was when going through his game highlights with coaching staff, the other was coincidental while watching television at home one night.
But that is indicative of how Wojcinski and the Cats approach things: there is little to no time for looking back; it’s more important to stay in the present and look to the future.
With just two games left before Geelong launches yet another finals campaign, there is little danger of the Cats losing focus, especially after a decent weekend training session during a bye in the schedule.
“It was a pretty solid session,” Wojcinski said. “It wasn’t a pre-season session, but it was still pretty solid. We made sure we still got in a fair chunk of running. It wasn’t a full weekend off. We did have the weekend off, but we still made sure we did our training and kept our minds on the job.
“We’ve worked hard on a few things over the summer and we’ve still got a long way to go. We’re improving every week and we’ve still got to improve some more if we’re going to have a good finals series. So the next couple of games we’ll still work on some things that will hold us in good stead for the finals.”
Those two games against Sydney at Skilled Stadium on Saturday and Collingwood at the MCG on Friday week are almost perfect in terms of priming the Cats for the finals campaign.
The Swans and Magpies will provide a real edge to the games as Geelong closes a home-and-away season that has so far seen the impressive Cats lose just twice in 20 games.
There might have been some expectation from outside Skilled Stadium that Geelong would take a dip after the departures of premiership coach Mark Thompson and Brownlow Medallist Gary Ablett.
But the self-belief within the Geelong playing group never waivered and the results and performances have been there for all to see with a second-placed finish on the ladder beckoning.
“We always thought we were going to be a good side again this year and play some pretty good footy,” Wojcinski said. “I guess people outside the club maybe thought we would fall away a bit, but we fully believed we would have the players to really compete this year.
“We haven’t really exceeded our own expectations at all, I don’t think. We’re a pretty experienced group now and we’ve been through it before. We’ve got things we want to work on over the next couple of weeks and get them done so they will hold us in good stead for finals.
“It’s such an exciting time of the year. We’re looking forward to it. We’ve got two games to go, but knowing we’re playing finals is very good and very exciting.”
If it’s as exciting as that goal Wojcinski kicked against Gold Coast, it will be one hell of a ride for the Cats through September.
Only when that finals campaign is over Wojcinski might take a sneaky look at the DVD of his goal that brought the home crowd out of its seats.
“I was in a fair bit of space in the middle and kept running,” Wojcinski said. “Their bloke came at me and I was about to give the ball up. But once I was around him, I looked at the goals and went for it.”
