By JOHN VAN KLAVEREN
GEELONG coach Chris Scott is embracing the positives of playing top-eight sides in the run home.
After the bye Geelong faces North Melbourne and Fremantle in quick succession, with Hawthorn a fortnight later.
“We have a reasonably tough draw on the way home,” Scott conceded at this week’s media conference.
“The benefit of that is you get to play sides that are around you and if you’re good enough to beat them then you hurt their chances as well.”
But as always he was cagey about overlooking GWS Giants away on Saturday night – an opportunity for the Cats to stake their first interstate scalp this season.
Scott knows his charges are good enough to beat any side on its day but the issue is bringing that form when it counts most.
“We’ve played really good footy in patches and we have a level of confidence that our best is good enough,” he said.
“What we haven’t done is shown our best consistently through the year.
“Our challenge is to be consistently good all through the game and, if you do that, things like percentage and margins tend to look after themselves.”
Gaining a foothold in the top four, while a positive, was not the end game for the Cats, Scott emphasised.
“(Top four is) important but we’d rather be flying and finish fifth than finish fourth and be struggling.
“Having a fit squad is one of the most important things for any team having success toward the end of the year, especially given the competition is so close now.
“Having the best players available and more importantly in good form is so crucial. We don’t believe we’ve put our best team together yet this season.
“It’s not a matter of who has been the best team during the year; it’s a matter of who’s going the best at the end.”
In contrast to last season, when flexibility was seen as a goal, Geelong has sought greater stability this year as injuries necessitated a number of team changes.
“We’ve been a little more stable in the way we’ve set up and hopefully we will be even more stable in another month,” Scott said.
The continued good form of Mark Blicavs will allow the Cats’ brainstrust to reconsider running dual ruckmen as better weather produces firmer surfaces.
Scott admitted the success of ruck combo of Hamish McIntosh and Dawson Simpson had been a pleasant surprise.
Likewise Shane Kersten, offering a change-up for the Geelong forward line.
“He’s a different type of forward to the ones we’ve played in previous years,” Scott observed.
“Tom Hawkins is obviously a big, dominant power forward and Shane has capabilities to play a little bit that way but he’s different to some of your big, tall marking forwards.
“He’s very good at ground level, really quick and powerful, a beautiful kick and makes the most of his opportunities, so we think he’s a good player in his own right. It’s still early days but he complements the rest of our forward line, which is in his favour at the moment.”
