The Stinear effect: Geelong shares the ball and kicks goals in 2026
Geelong has kicked 50 goals in its first five games of the 2026 AFLW season. That is almost three-quarters of the 69 goals the Cats managed across the whole of 2025.
The turnaround has come under Mick Stinear. He coached Melbourne for the first 10 seasons of its AFLW existence before leaving to take over at Geelong ahead of 2026. He became the first AFLW coach poached by another club while still holding his job, and only the third to coach at a second club, according to ABC News.
Geelong opened 2026 with a loss to North Melbourne. The Kangaroos entered the season as the two-time reigning premier. The Cats have clicked into gear since.
The key number is goal assists. That is the last kick or handball to a teammate who kicks a goal. It measures sharing and clean ball movement inside attack.
Geelong is averaging 7.8 goal assists a game in 2026. That sits second in the league behind North Melbourne. Last year Geelong averaged 3.4.
The spread tells the story. Seven Cats averaged 0.6 goal assists or more across the opening five games. In 2025, only two players hit that mark for the season: Julia Crockett-Grills with 1.0 a game and Aishling Moloney with 0.6.
Moloney is setting the standard. She averaged 1.6 goal assists through the first five games and kicked seven goals herself. She is creating and finishing.
The rest of the attack has lifted with her. Geelong averaged 66.2 points, 36.2 inside 50s — entries into the attacking 50-metre zone — and 6.4 different goalkickers a game in 2026, up from 41.7 points, 32.6 inside 50s and 4.1 goalkickers in 2025. Goal efficiency, the rate of scores from inside 50s that become goals, rose from 17.7 per cent to 27.6 per cent. Accuracy rose from 36.3 per cent to 55.0 per cent.
The Cats also ranked first in the league for disposal efficiency at 69.8 per cent. That is the rate of kicks and handballs that hit the target or go to a teammate's advantage. Clean use. Less chasing.
None of this is new for Stinear. His Melbourne teams ranked in the top two for goal assists in four of five seasons from 2022 Season 6 onward. They averaged 3.9 to rank second in 2022 Season 6 against a league average of 2.5, then 4.2 to rank first in 2022 Season 7 against a league average of 2.6. They averaged 6.3 to rank first in 2023 against a league average of 3.4, and 5.3 to rank second in 2025 against a league average of 3.6. Only 2024 broke the run, when they averaged 3.1 to rank eighth against a league average of 3.0.
Melbourne started 2026 in a different place. Stinear was gone. Anne Hatchard had moved to Gold Coast, Taylor Smith to Sydney and Eden Zanker to Fremantle in the off-season.
Geelong is not starting from nothing. The Cats reached a preliminary final in 2023. That is one win short of a Grand Final. The talent was there. The connection was not.
What makes this stand out is how quickly the connection has come. Five games. More scorers. Better looks. The ball moves and more than one player benefits. For fans, this means less waiting for one star to do it all.
