AFL Journalist Adam McNicol and Tom Lonergan joined the panel for this year’s first episode of Argue the Toss to discuss Thursday night’s game against the Crows.

Lonergan says the Cats, who will meet James Podsiadly for the first time as an opponent, will stick to their original game plan for their first battle of the season at Simonds Stadium.

“Just playing the Geelong way, that attacking brand of football following up with strong defensive work,” Lonergan told Cats TV.

“Obviously the key to any game is to put lots of pressure on, laying lots of tackles and more importantly sustaining that… so we’ll try and keep the ball in our half and hopefully put a bit of scoreboard pressure on.”

Despite a number of key players missing from the Crows squad, McNicol says their improved game tactics will be something for the Cats to watch out for.  

For Round 1 the Cats will be looking for their revenge after going down to the Crows by two points in rd 17 last year.

“The Crows are going in without a number of top-line players including guys like Nathan van Berlo and Richie Douglas - so they’re a bit undermanned but they’ve been working very hard on their game plan over the summer.”

“Brenton Sanderson (Adelaide’s senior coach) told us a few weeks ago that there’s going to be a lot more attacking this year and he feels it’s going to be a very high scoring season, so they’re going to come out all guns blazing.”