GEELONG caused one of the upsets of the season on Sunday afternoon, downing reigning premiers Brisbane to spark the flame and keep its floundering finals chances alive.

Reflecting on proceedings post-match, Cats’ coach Dan Lowther agreed that early pressure was the main focus of his side heading into the clash.

“Contested ball and just setting ourself around the contest to try and win first possession, first phase was a really big thing going into the weekend, leading into the game,” Lowther said.

“With a strong team like Brisbane, there’s this class inside with their strength and their ability to get the ball from in down and we thought if we could match it there, we could maybe at least have a bit of an arm wrestle in between the arcs and it worked out that way.”

One of the biggest roles in the Cats’ side on Sunday went to young defender Anna-Rose Kennedy, who had the unenviable task of matching up on star Lions’ forward Taylor Smith.

But after keeping Smith goalless and to six disposals for the whole match, Kennedy’s efforts drew plenty of praise from Lowther, who described her as “outstanding”.

“There’s a reason why we played in the preliminary final last year,” Lowther said.

“It would have been nice to get that kind of response last year for a first game in a big game like last season’s prelim, today was also a big game for us too. We’ve got three games to go, oh now down to two, but we still want to execute and play a way that is a Geelong way, and that’s how much faith we have in Anna Rose’s ability to play the game. And she’s still learning, but today was a really big step forward for us.”

Having joined her coach for the post-match media conference, Kennedy herself mentioned that the practice at training made taking on a job like playing on Smith a lot easier.

“I suppose we practice it at training and that when it comes to the field then it seems like it’s just a normal session,” Kennedy explained. “I was delighted to get on a bit more ball.

“I suppose in previous games I hadn’t been involved, so delighted just to make an impact and get the ball forward to the girls to do the damage.”

Someone else who drew plenty of praise from their coach was Nina Morrison, who Lowther agreed is having a bit of an underrated season, but also said that “I think if you asked her she’d be saying that it’s not as dynamic as last season.”

“She’s been building and doing things differently from week-to-week that’s supporting the fact that we’re trying to do things a bit differently around the midfield and she’s been supporting that in the past she’s played as an outside runner, high forward, but this year she’s been predominantly playing as an inside mid.

“She’s slowly been getting into a bit of consistency and today was one of those games we started to finish where I thought her attitude to contest, her ability to get out and run in second phase and then support the ball going forward was the best it’s been.”