NEW CATS HAVE COACH BUZZING
COACH Chris Scott believes Geelong’s draftees will provide an instant impact this year.
Scott is optimistic the club’s four national draft selections can help the club’s flag bid, buoyant with its haul of Lachlan Fogarty, Tim Kelly, Charlie Constable and Gryan Miers in the national draft.
“We did have a few specific targets and it’s always a bit of a risk in the draft because there’s so many unknowns and you don’t know what the other clubs are going to do, but our first couple of picks in particu- lar were great acquisitions for us,” Scott said at the club’s open training session yesterday.
“Tim Kelly is a bit older but we think he could help us, if not straight away, but pretty early in his tenure at Geelong.
“To be frank, Lachlan Fogarty was someone that I didn’t know much about because we thought he was going to be an early pick, so to get him later was a real bonus for us.
“I might be a bit different to coaches across the competition, but every year that I’m involved I think the quality of the kids coming through just improves. All of our picks are going to help us, definitely in the medium term, but I think they’ve got the capacity to help us in 2018 as well, which is exciting.”
The Cats’ first real hitout comes on February 15, meeting Adelaide, Port Adelaide, Fremantle, West Coast and Collingwood in AFLX.
Scott said the new hybrid competition “complements our season pretty well”.
“We like that style of training and we’ll do a bit of work that’s in preparation for AFLX, but it’s also pretty close to what we’d normally do for the AFL season,” Scott said.
“We need to make sure the guys are prepared for that game and we’re really optimistic that not just the public will get behind it as a spectacle, but we think it’s got real capacity for recreational athletes to play without the extreme physical demands of 18v18 on a big stadium.
“We’re advocates for it and we’ll take it seriously.”