By Justin Flynn
Geelong coach Chris Scott has admitted he prefers last season’s format of 16-minute quarters.
The AFL reverted back to the traditional 20-minute quarter this season after they were reduced to 16 minutes last year to allow for a condensed fixture due to the pandemic.
“I’m a huge advocate for the game being shorter,” Scott said on Wednesday.
“I think if the game stayed where it was last year, over a period of years everyone would get used to it.
“The quality of the game I think would go up. I think it would be more sustainable for the best players that play for a longer period of time
“I just don’t buy into the idea that let’s make the hardest game in the world even harder and run these guys out of the game when they’re 30.
“I’d love to see every game bar two, Dustin Martin run around as a 35 year old.”
Brisbane coach Chris Fagan, Port Adelaide’s Ken Hinkley and St Kilda’s Brett Ratten have all said they would prefer quarters to be shorter.
Carlton’s David Teague said he preferred 20-minute quarters and Richmond’s Damien Hardwick said he would settle for somewhere in between.
Geelong takes on Sydney at the SCG tomorrow night.
Both sides sit on four wins, but their formline is totally different.
The Swans won their first four games and have dropped the last two. Geelong started slowly but has defeated North Melbourne by 30 points and West Coast by 97 points in consecutive games.
However, Scott emphasised that the young Swans needed to be respected.
“We weren’t panicking when we didn’t think we were on top of our game post the North game,” he said.
“We won by 30 points, it wasn’t a disaster. And we’re not in love with ourselves now because we executed much better against the Eagles.
“It always brings you back down to earth when you look at the opposition and you see the quality of the footy that they’ve played and almost without exception across the competition you don’t need to go back too far to find good examples of the opposition playing well and Sydney’s first four weeks were really dominant.”
Even without Lance Franklin and Sam Reid in the side, Scott said Sydney’s scoring potential was still a worry.
“They have some young quality height and I imagine it’s going to be a bit of a selection headache for them when they have everyone available,” he said.
“I doubt their structure will change too much. I think they will have at least two talls down there.
“Their smalls are really dangerous. You look at their forward line and as much as any, (Tom) Papley’s the one that grabs your attention.”
