A MAIDEN premiership appears more in reach than ever before for Patrick Dangerfield, and the Brownlow Medallist is daring to dream.<\/p>\n
An eight-time All-Australian and four-time best and fairest across both Geelong and Adelaide, Dangerfield is without a doubt one of the greatest players of his generation.<\/p>\n
However, a premiership has eluded him during his time at the top level. In his 15 seasons in the AFL, Dangerfield\u2019s side has only missed finals four times, all at the Crows earlier in his career.<\/p>\n
But he\u2019s only played one grand final, a 2020 loss to Richmond when he gathered 12 disposals.<\/p>\n
But with the Cats on top of the ladder and on a 10-game winning streak, Dangerfield said his teammates have been encouraged to dream big.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think there\u2019s anything wrong with dreaming sometimes\u2026 it\u2019s a special game and sometimes you do forget to enjoy the moment, enjoy the victory,\u201d he said on Sportsday<\/em>.<\/p>\n \u201cIt can be emotional, it can be an absolute rollercoaster. We\u2019ve said to our guys, ‘don\u2019t be afraid to dream big’.<\/p>\n \u201cNow that doesn\u2019t mean that you throw away the process\u2026 we\u2019re professional enough to understand that, but why not picture yourself at that moment, and I\u2019m sure there\u2019s plenty of our players that do that.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd there will be some [that say] \u2018nope, put it on the back burner, don\u2019t want to talk about it, don\u2019t want to think about it, it\u2019s just this week and that is all that matters\u2019.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s a problem if your mind strays at times as long as you realign yourself when you need to.\u201d<\/p>\n As Dangerfield said, a more aggressive brand of footy has seen the Cats capitalise in 2022.<\/p>\n They average 94 points per game in 2022, up from just shy of 84 last year all while conceding 69 points per game after 66 the year before.<\/p>\n What once was a boring team at times has become enjoyable to watch, with the Cats pulling off several last quarter comebacks this season with a free-flowing style.<\/p>\n Dangerfield said he believes it\u2019s off the back of more \u201cballsy\u201d decisions with ball in hand.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s been a tweaking of what we\u2019ve done. We\u2019ve been a bit more aggressive with the way we\u2019ve moved the ball at times,\u201d Dangerfield added.<\/p>\n \u201cThere were probably a few games early on in the season when we were still learning and adjusting with that new style and didn\u2019t quite get it right, there were some poor games there which was always going to happen.<\/p>\n \u201cWe always felt like our second half of the season was going to be better than our first as we adjusted to some slight tweaks, less marks, more aggressive, wanting to get the ball into the forward line quickly and put defenders under pressure.<\/p>\n \u201cMost teams want to do that, but it\u2019s the confidence at different stages during games and just being a bit more ballsy with the way we build the ball up into our forward line.\u201d<\/p>\n \n