By JOHN VAN KLAVEREN
A CARLTON midfield containing “genuine great of our era” Chris Judd occupied Geelong coach Chris Scott’s mind this week.
“The Blues midfield is in exceptional form, their key forwards have been in strong form, Jarrad Waite has certainly found something,” Scott observed at this week’s media conference.
“When you combine really good midfield depth and quality ball use inside 50 to strong marking forwards, that’s a pretty good combination.
“They’re using the ball well. They’ve been hanging on to it and delivering it to their forwards well.
“The pressure around the contest and our ability to force them to kick the ball to the favour of our defenders if possible is pretty important to our game.
“Chris Judd is one of the genuine greats of our era, so we wish him well post this weekend. But its good for footy that champions keep playing.
“Our midfield against theirs is going to have a big say in the game and when you come up against quality midfielders it’s always a bit harder.”
But Scott again backed his midfielders – Joel Selwood, Steve Johnson, Mitch Duncan, Allan Christensen and Matthew Stokes – against any other AFL combination.
“Our plan will be mainly based around our game. We think our plan is relatively robust against any game style but we’d need to be particularly aware of the quality they have through the midfield.”
Of greater concern was the final quarter comeback that finished with Fremantle almost pinching the game last weekend.
“The players knew on the night the sort of stuff we were talking about. It just shows what a fine line it is in a pressure game.
“It’s one thing to know, it’s another thing to execute those plans under pressure, when the scoreboard is close and the opposition is high quality.
“It’s important that we reinforce those things in theory but it’s much more important that we practice it and work on executing it against a team that’s in really good form in Carlton on Friday night.”
Scott said the side was not completely settled even though it was round 21.
Dawson Simpson had been sidelined with a “minor and temporary back issue”, Taylor Hunt was still struggling with groin soreness and the race to find the best forward foil for Tom Hawkins was still open.
Scott said he was “not closed off” to any rucking options, although he conceded that Hamish McIntosh was “up and going” and had improved the team.
Scott also gave Shane Kersten a vote of confidence, despite his deference to Hawkins in games.
“We think Shane has the potential to be an outstanding player and we want the ball kicked to him.”
But Scott kept up the pressure, picking Josh Walker and Mitch Brown as part of any finals squad.
