{"id":115928,"date":"2025-06-13T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-12T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/geelongtimes\/?p=115928"},"modified":"2025-06-11T15:40:06","modified_gmt":"2025-06-11T05:40:06","slug":"cats-extend-premiership-pair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/geelongtimes\/sport\/cats-extend-premiership-pair\/","title":{"rendered":"Cats extend premiership pair"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>THE Geelong Cats have locked away a pair of its premiership stars for another season in the hoops.<\/p>\n<p>Mark Blicavs and Tom Atkins have signed on until at least the end of 2026 and 2027 respectively.<\/p>\n<p>Committing to a 14th AFL season, Blicavs made his debut in Round 1, 2013 and has played 281 games to date.<\/p>\n<p>His durability has been a hallmark of his career, having only missed 17 games since his first in the Cats colours.<\/p>\n<p>A Geelong life member and dual Carji Greeves Medallist, Blicavs has continued to play a crucial role in the Cats side in 2025.<\/p>\n<p>He is averaging 13.3 disposals, 11.6 hitouts and has kicked 6 goals.<\/p>\n<p>Geelong Cats executive general manager Andrew Mackie said Blicavs&#8217; versatility had been important in the first half of this season.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Mark is an incredibly flexible and a dependable teammate and is an outstanding leader for our football program.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was an easy decision for us to extend Mark&#8217;s contract, he remains a key piece for us and will continue to be a key driver of high standards and team success.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Atkins, who was to become a free agent at the end of this season, has been pivotal to the Cats strong start to the year.<\/p>\n<p>He is averaging career high numbers in contested possessions and clearances and is leading the competition in tackles, amassing an average of 9.9 per game.<\/p>\n<p>Off the field, Atkins is a much-loved team-mate, having won the Tom Harley Award for Best Clubman on three occasions.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Tom is a player that is strong in the contest and who can play a variety of different roles for us,&#8221; Mackie said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He is a quality Geelong person, he is a great leader within our program, and we love how he goes about it.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>THE Geelong Cats have locked away a pair of its premiership stars for another season in the hoops. Mark Blicavs and Tom Atkins have signed on until at least the end of 2026 and 2027 respectively. Committing to a 14th AFL season, Blicavs made his debut in Round 1, 2013 and has played 281 games [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/geelongtimes\/sport\/cats-extend-premiership-pair\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":201,"featured_media":115930,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-115928","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Cats extend premiership pair - Geelong Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Geelong Cats re-sign premiership stars Mark Blicavs and Tom Atkins, locking in leadership, versatility and toughness through 2027.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/geelongtimes\/sport\/cats-extend-premiership-pair\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cats extend premiership pair - 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