Married to the Cats: Chris Scott at this week’s announcement.
Andrew Mathieson
THREE men have been credited with Geelong’s most successful era in almost 60 years: Brian Cook, Frank Costa and Mark Thompson.
Costa is on the verge of stepping down as the smooth club president but it’s Thompson who controversially quit the coaching job, causing a ripple effect at Kardinia Park.
The other pillar – the Cats’ chief executive – has remained positive after a tumultuous few weeks in charge.
The ultimate salesmen, Cook enjoyed selling the virtues of new coach Chris Scott when helping announce his surprise appointment this week.
“We’re very excited to have Chris with us at the helm of the Cats,” Cook told a waiting media pack.
“He brings to this club an immense amount of leadership quality.
“We believe he has great management potential, has a great understanding of the sports science world and the IT world, is a person we think is a future-type of coach, a coach-manager – that’s the way we’re heading.”
Amazingly, the Cats revealed they had considered up to 120 possible candidates for the senior job.
The list was quickly narrowed to 18 and then a final four.
Many Geelong fans may have been disappointed the club bucked the popular trend and not appointed assistant coach Brenton Sanderson nor former Cat Ken Hinkley.
Or let Brendan McCartney out of the final year of a three-year contract, furthering rumours that he would link up with Thompson at Essendon.
But Scott, formerly a Fremantle assistant coach, was appointed after Geelong’s board of directors unanimously endorsed a recommendation from a club working party that “went through a pretty intense review process”.
Cook was left beaming, barely containing his delight at Scott’s arrival.
“Those last four we felt would really fit into our culture – that was really important for us,” Cook said.
“Then from there we really had to look at technical qualities as well as a lot of other qualities – Chris came out of that with flying colours.
“We fell in love with Chris over a two-week period, it was a short honeymoon, but now we have the marriage.”
The decision came down one key word – culture – or, as Cook said, a “very successful culture and environment”.
“That’s certainly went his way as well because it wasn’t about age,” he said.
“It was more about being a part of an experienced team and being a leader of a really successful culture that certainly the Brisbane Lions were.”
Cook said the Cats’ decision was not made with just tomorrow in mind.
“The appointment of Chris is not simply about 2011 – it’s also about 2015,” he said.
“We believe that in the interests of the football club and the longer term … we believe that Chris is an exciting appointment at the football club.
“We felt there was a tremendous upside with Chris in the years to come.”
