Cats lose twice as semi-final pain is salted by Butters’s decision to join Dogs

What was intended as gentlemanly patience, to politely keep his counsel and avoid being a distraction to Geelong’s finals campaign, in the end served to compound the pain of the Cats’ finals exit.

Falling short again this year was one thing. Upsetting, sure, but the pain as the Cats walked from Optus Stadium was assuaged by the idea that next year would be different. Next year they would have Butters. Next year they would have Butters and Toby Greene and Rowan Marshall. Not a holy trinity, but a trinity for holes.

Now Butters is out, and it is doubtful that the other two targeted inclusions – if they both still arrive – are enough to shift Geelong’s premiership dial.

The Cats might get Marshall still. In fact, they probably will this time as St Kilda appear willing to, at least, discuss it this year, compared to last year and the year before.

Whether Marshall would have fared significantly better on Friday night against Fremantle than the highly talented but raw Mitch Edwards is academic. Luke Jackson is such a unique talent it is questionable if anyone can really contain him any more, but the more experienced Marshall might not have been as loose with his grappling as Edwards, who gave away two costly goals from free kicks.

The Cats might also still get Greene. They probably will. Though a little over a week ago after Peter Ryan reported in this masthead that Greene had met with Geelong officials to discuss his free agency and a reunion with Jeremy Cameron, Greene did an interview in which he admitted he’d been talking with Butters for days about their joint decisions.

“He [Butters] adds a bit of weight to that decision,” Greene said. “I wanted to see where his head was at [and] the things he values highly in his decision. That’s what I asked him.”

What now then? Does no Butters mean no Greene? Does Greene decide to be a one-club player? Industry expectation is that he will still end up at the Cats, that he will look at their open premiership window and climb in, and he probably will. But industry expectation also had Butters favouring Geelong until Saturday morning.

So, what now for Geelong? Without Butters, the same midfield hole is there. The midfield was smashed in Friday night’s semi-final, and in the second half of last year’s grand final. Yes, Max Holmes was injured this year, but they need help. As Andrew Wu pointed out in this masthead , a starting midfield of two defensive mids, Oisin Mullin and Mark O’Connor, with only Bailey Smith (poor in the first quarter, very good in the third) and Shaun Mannagh made for a centre square set-up lacking creativity and ability to win the ball.

Geelong will now ask, were we chasing Butters because we had a problem that he could fix or did we want him simply because he was available and any time you can get an elite player you try for it? It felt like he was both – the perfectly available player to solve a problem. So now if not him, then who?

The Cats are a bit like Hawthorn.