Geelong coach Chris Scott is remaining an “optimist” and believes his side can keep its premiership defence alive by qualifying for finals.
The Cats’ top-eight hopes received another blow on Friday night when they went down to Collingwood by eight points.
Geelong (10-1-10) needs to win both remaining games against the Saints and Western Bulldogs to avoid missing the finals for the first time since 2015.
Even if they win both games, it is not guaranteed the Cats will be safe and the team that ended 2022 by winning 16 straight could finish this round as low as 12th.
“I think we can play better, no doubt about that,” Scott said.
“But two games to go, do I think we can win them? Yep.
“We’ve got two games to go, and we think we can play well enough to beat any team in the comp when we play our best.
“We can play well enough to win the last two games and play in the finals. I’m an optimist.”
Against Collingwood, Jeremy Cameron threatened to swing the game back in the Cats’ favour, incredibly kicking his fifth and sixth goals of the match while standing completely out of bounds as the umpires inexplicably failed to blow the whistle.
Scott claimed he hadn’t seen the replay of Cameron’s last-quarter goal when he clearly kicked the ball from outside the boundary.
“I actually didn’t see it. People that know the game well say that it wasn’t outside the boundary,” Scott said.
Collingwood coach Craig McRae felt the umpires clearly got it wrong.
“We make mistakes, I make plenty,” he said.
