FINALS ALWAYS THE GOAL
I’d rather try and fail than bottom out: Scott
GEELONG coach Chris Scott has doubled down on his stance that he would rather reach the finals and fail than be a “middling team” or a club “promising to contend in 5-6 years”.
In a question-and-answer session at Geelong’s season launch on Thursday night, Scott (pictured) continued a theme he often touched on last year, when he said he was proud the Cats continued to put themselves up for the premiership challenge, despite continuous heartbreak.
Scott’s storied home-andaway winning percentage of 72.03 – the best of any coach in AFL/VFL history to lead a team for at least 100 matches – is balanced out by a 40 per cent finals winning record.
Since claiming the 2011 premiership, his men have played in five losing preliminary finals and one lost grand final, and have only missed the eight once, in 2015.
Heading into his 12th season in charge at Geelong, Scott said despite the heartbreak he was not interested in bottoming out and wanted to keep putting his side up to play in September, even if it drew criticism when the Cats fell short.
“I think it is one of the privileges that comes with being a member of the Geelong Football Club,” he said.
“It would be a lot easier to be part of a middling team, or one that is promising to contend in 5-6 years and has a development plan. I kind of like the idea that pressure is a privilege.
“We owe our senior players a lot for what they have done for our footy club and in return we have tried to tell them that, ‘we are going to give you a chance this year if things go right to win it’ (the premiership).
“We are not going to worry about being a good side in 5-6 years. We are going to give you (the players) every chance now and with that comes that little bit of extra pressure and probably magnifies disappointment when it doesn’t quite work out, but that is the risk we are willing to take.”
Geelong has been open this summer about its desire to play a more attacking brand of football and Scott said the tweaks in the game style had come about after his new-look coaching panel stripped back their plan ahead of the season.
Scott said the group highlighted what its players did well and built a plan around that, rather than trying to cover for what the players did not do so well.
Scott highlighted youngster Max Holmes as a player who stood out in the club’s pre-season match against Gold Coast, with the second-year midfielder in line to play round 1 against Essendon.
Meanwhile, Geelong president Craig Drummond told fans the Cats were expecting to post a $3m surplus in 2022.
Drummond said as long as crowd numbers remained at full capacity, the club would rake in the extra millions given the Cats were now debt-free.