Sunday Territorian

My phone is off: Scott hoses rival offers talk

- BRAD ELBOROUGH, CHRIS CAVANAGH

CHRIS Scott is committed to the challenge facing Geelong, to bounce back after its 83point loss to Melbourne in the preliminar­y final on Friday night. He will not entertain taking a phone call from any other club looking for a coach, such as Carlton, declaring: “I wouldn’t answer my phone; it would be off for a while.”

That challenge to win the Cats’ first flag since 2011 is not as simple as changing the age profile of the side.

The Cats had 12 players take to Perth Stadium who were 30 or older, and looked tired and slow as they copped their biggest loss since round 11, 2014.

Scott said the heavy defeat came at the end of a draining period of five or six weeks and his “battered” team “completely ran out of steam”.

But he pointed to history to suggest the Cats – who slumped to their fourth preliminar­y final defeat in six years – are capable of recovering from the slashing at the hands of the Demons.

“When you get beaten, you look old and when you win, it’s because of your experience,” he said. “I don’t think either is necessaril­y true, but we have to dig down and be really clear that the things we need to improve on are real, rather than just jumping at the superficia­l analysis.

“At the end of 2010, Geelong had a bad loss in a preliminar­y final and it was the end then.

“We are in a brutally difficult competitio­n, that is in effect a handicap. So, the longer you are up towards the top, the harder it gets. I understand that part of it.

“That was our challenge at the end of 2010 and I suspect that is still our challenge now.”

The coach took Geelong to a premiershi­p in his first season at the helm in 2011 after the 41-point loss to Collingwoo­d to end 2010.

 ??  ?? Geelong coach Chris Scott.
Geelong coach Chris Scott.

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