Cats keep key duo on ice
Geelong will resist temptation and stick to its management plan for stars Daniel Menzel and Steven Motlop. The duo will be left out of the side to play Sydney at Simonds Stadium tomorrow night.
OUT of sorts Geelong star Steven Motlop may still be another month away from returning to the senior team.
Coach Chris Scott confirmed yesterday Motlop and Daniel Menzel would miss tomorrow night’s clash with Sydney as the club resisted the temptation to recall them, allowing them to continue managing injury problems.
Menzel and Motlop have both struggled with niggles in the past few weeks and the Cats made the call last week to give them a rest in the lead-up to the finals.
Geelong will be forced to make at least two changes for the Swans game, with Patrick Dangerfield (suspension) and Nakia Cockatoo (hamstring) both to miss.
Menzel and Motlop would have added much needed class and experience to the side, but Scott said they were looking at the bigger picture when it comes to their management.
“When I say we are going to stick to the plan, the plan was always quite fluid, but it was always based around an intention to get them right over the medium term,” Scott said.
“They have made strides forward. Probably in previous weeks if they were in the same physical state they might have played. We are in a phase where we want to give them the best chance to be healthy later in the season.
“As important a game as this one is, we’ve resisted the temptation to bring those guys back.”
Neither Motlop nor Menzel will play in the VFL this week.
While Menzel is closer to a return, Scott said Motlop’s return date was still uncertain.
“We named him (Motlop) managed (against Carlton) because we are managing him over a period of weeks. When I say weeks, it could well stretch into three or four weeks,” Scott said.
“That clearly speaks to the fact that he has an issue that is preventing him from moving at his best.”
Sam Simpson, Rhys Stanley, Zach Guthrie and Aaron Black are all in contention to be named in Geelong’s team when it is announced tonight.
Scott conceded the Cats would field a youthful team against the Swans, with the added challenge of taking on one of the competition’s inform teams without Dangerfield.
“I don’t subscribe to the theory you take out one of the best players in the competition and replace him with a youngster and all’s well. It’s going to make it more challenging for us, but not impossible,” Scott said.
“We have a group of players that are looking forward to continually improving. Sometimes these opportunities allow others to step up.
“We will have a young team. From the team we played late last year, we will probably have eight or nine new faces.
“That’s daunting on one level but it’s exciting on another.”
Hawthorn is the only team to beat Sydney since Round 7, with the Swans rocketing up the ladder thanks to a 10-2 record.
They had started the season 0-6.
Scott said he could learn a lot from what Hawthorn had done in their wins over the Swans, but it was not a case of copy and pasting their game plan into Geelong’s.
“I suspect sometimes you can have a look at one team beating Sydney and think ‘all you have got to do is play the way Hawthorn did’,” he said.
“I, for one, when I look at it tend to think Hawthorn play their way against Sydney and it works. It’s a real trap saying ‘the way to beat Sydney is the way Hawthorn play, so let’s play like Hawthorn play and forget how Geelong plays’.”