New-look Cats head west for cup opener to season

GEELONG coach Chris Scott plans to use the early NAB Cup rounds to reignite his team’s chemistry following a swag of off-season acquisitions.
“We’ve effectively brought in seven or eight players from the squad that was available last year,” Scott said.
Geelong enlisted injury-prone North Melbourne ruckman Hamish McIntosh, veteran Melbourne defender Jared Rivers and exciting Gold Coast on-baller Josh Caddy during the off-season.
The Cats actively recruited from other clubs in a change from their development philosophy of the past few seasons.
“When you consider Caddy, McIntosh and Rivers plus Josh Cowan, Travis Varcoe and Nathan Vardy should be back, that’s a big percentage of the team that wasn’t available last year.
“And while those guys aren’t all certainties to be in our best 22, they’re close.”
The Cats play West Coast and Fremantle in the opening round robin format of the NAB Cup at Subiaco on Saturday.
“It’s a ground we haven’t played all that well at even though we’ve had some close results,” Scott said.
“We’re looking to play well, first and foremost, and looking to get some experience over in Perth.
“We only play there once this year but traditionally we play there twice, so it’s really important you play your very best football against the best teams in the hardest venues and both the Perth teams and Subiaco are tough.
“We’d also like to see some of our young players, not only our really inexperienced players but our second, third and fourth year players who haven’t had much of an opportunity.
“There are a few of them we’ll be pushing really hard for round one while some of the older players tend to manage themselves through the NAB Cup.
“We’ve got a big group of youngish players that need to be playing close to their best straight away to press their case.”
Missing from the opening round will be James Kelly, Paul Chapman, Dawson Simpson and Josh Hunt as they recover from injuries or illness.
Recruit Hamish McIntosh had arthroscopic knee surgery this week and will be sidelined for two or three weeks, Scott said.
Training staff would investigate the Cats’ spate of foot injuries to discover whether they had a common cause, he said.