A season-long project at Geelong will boil down to a few massive moments in Friday night’s AFL qualifying final against Collingwood.
Coach Chris Scott said the Cats have worked hard to be consistently better in the key moments that decide games, saying it’s an area where they have been found wanting.
The Cats coach added that this finals series is a culmination of a long build-up for the team over several seasons, but first, he is keen to see how his players handle critical moments against the Magpies.
“One of the things we’ve put on the table this year, more than we have in previous years, is we’re consistently okay,” Scott told AFL360.
“But in the big moments, I’m not just talking finals … we’ve had periods where we’ve just been really poor.
“So we’ve put a lot of work into rectifying that, but you don’t get many chances.
“Friday night is the biggest chance we’ve had for a while, to put into practice what we’ve been working on.”
Scott also addressed their poor finals record since the 2011 premiership – only three wins from 12 games – noting that several other clubs would have been happy to have that many September appearances.
He noted that only a handful of players remain at Geelong from the 2011 premiership team, and said the lack of finals success since would have meant more to them.
The Cats’ 2011 flag-winning coach also pointed to this year’s revamped game style, the inclusion of several debutants and the recruiting of Luke Dahlhaus and Gary Rohan.
“If you said to most clubs ‘you’ll play 12 finals in seven years’ – we’re pretty happy with that after a period when Geelong won three premierships,” Scott said
He has a simple reason for their lack of finals success lately.
“I just don’t think we’ve been good enough,” Scott said.
“It’s probably a fair reflection of where we’ve been – we’ve been good enough to be up in the top (four) … regularly, but not quite good enough to take the next step.
“This has been a long build for us, in my opinion.
“We don’t see obvious gaps in the way we play, compared to the last couple of years, in particular.”
Geelong have scored freely at times this year, but Scott does not expect a shootout with the Magpies.
“Friday night, the MCG, even this time of year, it tends to be a bit slippery even if it doesn’t rain and rain is forecast,” he said.
“I’d expect it to be a bit of a grind at times.”