Scott on Rohan’s Return Date…
He is going to be a bit of a longer-term play for us.
He’s training but he did just miss so much that we really feel that he needs a good preparation, almost a mini pre-season if you like, so I think without putting an exact number on it he’s more the halfway mark of the season and that’s not because he is injured now necessarily.
It’s more because we have made a deliberate decision to have a thorough preparation and to make sure he’s ready to come back in and perform really well as opposed to finding his feet over a number of weeks at VFL level.
I think with that type of preparation the one thing that I will earmark is that once he gets back to training, I don’t think he will need many games because he would have had so much preparation that once we decide to play him, he will be pretty much ready to play AFL footy.
Scott on Managing Players...
We are happy to put on the table that we will manage Joel Selwood. I think that has been earmarked over a number of weeks now and happy to keep explaining what our policy is.
In principle we have some guys that we are going to be proactive with and they are not going to play games even when they are in good health because one, we want to have them at their best deep into the season and two, we think we have a broad group of players that can all contribute, and we want to use them. We don’t want to get stuck with the same 22 every week.
Scott on Emerging Cats...
A few of the local Geelong guys so Cooper Stephens, Cooper Whyte, Mitch Knevitt and Toby Conway are in a similar bucket in that they are all need to get some density of VFL footy into them before we can really consider them for AFL selection.
I think Cooper (Stephens) is closer than he has ever been, but again repeating myself he has been deprived of VFL footy and we want to give him every chance that when he comes up to AFL level, which will happen, that we want to give him every chance to come up and play well as opposed to just being there.
Cooper Whyte has shown some real flexibility and great game understanding in the pre-season and we see him coming in and playing quite a few roles for us. We’ve already got to the stage with him where we know he can play midfield, what would he look like back, he can play a high forward role as well.
So, that does tend to help those young guys when they’ve got the flexibility because it is not a matter of being an inside mid and pushing Patty Dangerfield out of the team, there are a few more options for you.
Scott on Rivalry with Brisbane...
The way I see the rivalry and I’ve always been of this view even when I played back in the dark ages. It is a privilege to be part of a rivalry because they are really rivalries when you get two contenders.
You only get to be part of a genuine rivalry when both teams have been contenders and that’s the core of the matter for us, but even then when you get to that stage it is a great occasion for everyone.
It is fantastic for our fans that have been deprived of live football to get back to a sell-out at GMHBA (Stadium) on Friday night against probably the best team in the competition at the moment, so that’s the great occasion, but when you boil it down.. when you’re playing the best teams, it has more of an impact than every other game because it is a competition.
You’re not just trying to win your game, but you are trying to take one away from the other so that always adds a bit more spice to the genuine rivalries.
Scott on how Geelong will matchup on the fleet footed Brisbane small forwards…
We have a pretty flexible group down there.
Even if you were to look at the matchups that Jack Henry has taken over the years, I think he is a bit reflective of the overall group that we are trying to develop. He can play on the really tall guys, but he has got such good agility at ground level that he can play on the small agile ones as well, so I don’t limit it to one or two players, there is a broader more flexible group than that.
