By JOHN VAN KLAVEREN
CATS training sessions for media photo opportunities are usually light-hearted sessions, perhaps involving a bit of touch footy or a fun soccer game.
This week the Cats clicked straight into a full-ground training drill focusing on speedily moving the ball by hand and foot.
This facet of the game let the Cats down in their loss to North Melbourne as the Kangaroos beat Geelong at its own game.
The Kangaroos’ slick ball movement brought the Cats undone, with another young-but-exciting midfield coming to Simonds Stadium on Saturday afternoon when Port Adelaide visits.
Cats coach Chris Scott did not hide his disappointment at last weekend’s loss, even four days later.
“We actually thought we started the game pretty well. We set some things up pre-game that worked okay early,” he told this week’s media conference.
“As the game wore on we weren’t able to deliver. Certainly the opposition was able to out-possess us, which is not a disaster in and of itself but unfortunately that translated into them going inside 50 with extreme efficiency.
“That’s an area of our game that we look at in the context of our season that has been really positive. This year we limited the opposition inside 50s and made it hard for them to score at times.
“We maybe regressed a little bit on the weekend, which if it’s going to happen in any game it’s going to happen in perfect conditions inside at Etihad.
“In a way we need to move on and plan for the conditions we’re going to face this week at Geelong against Port.”
Scott did not mince words when contemplating the Port Adelaide juggernaut.
“Port is in the eight for a reason. They’ve played well the last month, albeit winning some pretty tight games,” Scott conceded.
“They’re getting some valuable experience in games when the heat’s on and it’s on the line late in the game.
“They have really high quality midfielders now. One of the big differences between this year for them and last year is the personnel they’ve got available – they’ve got some very damaging young players.”
Scott agreed the Cats had to treat young Port gun Chad Wingard as one of the Power’s keys.
“Age is irrelevant, he’s one of their high-quality players at the moment, along with Boak and Hartlett. Ebert is playing really consistent footy, they’ve got some real strength and depth through their midfield in particular.”
Geelong’s midfield will be bolstered with the return of Allen Christensen, while James Podsiadly will add balance to an out-of-sorts forward line.
“The combination of Simpson out and Podsiadly out did change the mix of our big guys to some extent and probably put a bit more pressure on (Tom) Hawkins,” Scott said.
“He’s going to have some days and maybe parts within games where he doesn’t look great but we’ve got some confidence in that we watch him every single day and every single game.
“We have a program that’s geared toward him improving toward the end of the year and we’re very confident in that.
“I didn’t see anything on the weekend that led me to believe that he’s regressed. We believe he’s making gradual improvement and he’ll play his best football late in the season.
“We’re confident in our big guys, we have a number of them. We have some options there.
“(Trent) West showed he can do it in the past. It would be extremely harsh to judge him on the performance first game back into the AFL team against virtually an all-Australian ruckman in Goldstein.
“Our plan is geared to having them at their absolute best when it counts.”
