IT’S ALL ABOUT THE EIGHT, MATE
GEELONG coach Chris Scott says he is “getting closer” to settling on a best 22 as his side ramps up its push for a finals finish.
The Cats wound back the clock in the final quarter against Melbourne on Saturday night, kicking eight goals to three in a scintillating display of football to overcome a 29-point deficit and hold on to their finals hopes — despite results yesterday pushing them back to ninth on the ladder with five games left.
Geelong had only managed eight goals in the first three quarters, but its transformation came on the back of several positional changes and an ability to win the ball and move it with pace, which resulted in the Demons defenders looking at sea on occasions.
In a frantic finish, Zach Tuohy had the cool head to kick the winning goal after the siren.
The Cats have been reluctant to be overly aggressive this year, but while Scott said there were times when a more attacking brand of football was required, such a style was only possible when his players were winning the ball as frequently as they did in the last quarter.
“We would like it (an attacking style) to be (more involved with our game plan) and I have said quite a few times that I am a defence first coach, and that is the bias of our coaching group as a whole, but I’ve also said quite regularly that particularly in today’s footy you need to be able to score,” Scott told 3AW yesterday.
“So you can’t prioritise defence at the complete expense of offence, but I think there were a few structural changes that helped us score a little bit.
“The biggest part was just our ability around the ball to win the contest. (So) let’s assume that we were looking a little bit more in that direction that we wanted to score a little bit more I think our starting point would be to give ourselves the best chance around the ball, because it doesn’t really matter what structure you go with ahead of it if you can’t win it at the source.”
Scott said while injuries were undoubtedly making it tough to get continuity with the same group of players, the Geelong coaching staff was keen to avoid making too many changes as September draws closer.
“I think we would have liked to have pretty much the team that we thought was going to play finals after the bye but we’ve been cruelled a little bit with injuries to key players and in some ways they are more important players internally than would be the observation externally,” he said.
“Guys like (Lincoln) McCarthy, (Nakia) Cockatoo and (Cory) Gregson, Harry Taylor is a bit more well known, but I think with a cou- ple of exceptions we are getting to the point where we do need to stabilise it as much as possible.
“That can be out of your hands to an extent with inures and we are always aware that we want to manage our players as well as possible, and with some of the older guys we might need to think through their programs. We’d prefer not to be having three or four changes every week but I think if we get towards a squad of 25 or 26.”