Cats ‘feeling good now’ after tough call

Geelong coach Chris Scott admitted he struggled with the decision whether to play All-Australian star Tom Stewart in Thursday’s qualifying final but the degree of difficulty in going all the way would have “gone through the roof” if he played him and he injured himself again.

The Cats romped into another preliminary final with an 84-point smashing of Port Adelaide, playing without key players Stewart and Sam De Koning.

Scott said he opted for a conservative approach with the star duo and Stewart (hamstring/illness) and De Koning (knee) would now have precious extra time to prepare for the ninth preliminary final of Scott’s decorated 14-season tenure.

“If we took a risk with those guys and it backfired, it wouldn’t have been impossible, but the degree of difficulty would’ve gone through the roof,” Scott said of his side’s chances of winning through to the grand final.

“The plan was to be conservative with those guys and hopefully still win the game, so we’re feeling good about that decision now.

“But we’re not getting ahead of ourselves.

“We’ve seen it through the year with the swings through the season … you’re a little bit of an off night from being badly beaten.

“We keep seeing that so that will keep our feet on the ground.

“They’re perfect examples of when you play well you go, ‘Oh, great decision’ and if we’d have played poorly it would have been about, ‘What would’ve happened if we’d had Stewart and De Koning?’

“But our focus is on having a good month, not getting desperate and trying to bluff our way into a prelim … you can’t do that in finals.”

Scott admitted he was still struggling with the decision around Stewart and his hamstring before illness tipped the scales.

“He had a good couple of weeks of training and we were really optimistic that he would be right,” the coach said.

“He was in full training for a session on Monday, we thought he was going to be right, but … we were still weighing that up.

“Then he started to come down with a bit of a flu, then by the time he woke up he was crook enough that he wouldn’t play, so it just sort of made the decision for him and us a little bit easier.

“But, hand on heart, we were leaning towards not playing him and we’d made the conservative call with De Koning as well.”

Tom Hawkins (foot) and Cam Guthrie (achilles) will play in the VFL at the weekend as they attempt to push their claims after long lay-offs.

Our plan all along was for them to play this week, so we’ll push on with that,” Scott said.

“We’ll stay optimistic, stay open-minded, keep all the options on the table and make good decisions in the moment.

“I’ll resist the temptation to forecast too much.

“I could sit here and speculate and it wouldn’t help anyone.”

Asked if he would like to see a preliminary final played in Geelong, not the MCG where it will certainly be scheduled, Scott replied with a mischievous gleam in his eye.

“I think my position has always been that you should play your home games wherever you want,” he said.

“But the AFL run the finals series and they’ve got to work out whether that’s the right thing or not and they’re balancing a whole lot of things that I don’t think about that much.

“They’ve got the good of the game front of mind and all I care about is the Cats, so it’s logical that we would disagree when we have those different perspectives.

“But a prelim final (in Geelong)? Why not? It’s a pretty good stadium.

“What I will say is prelim finals will be played at some point at the Gold Coast or at Giants Stadium or Hobart.”