Geelong had a firm eye on September in the lead up to the weekend’s game in Perth, with the break marked by a ‘heavier’ training load to prime the club for a deep finals run. 

Speaking after the Cats’ three goal win over West Coast, coach Chris Scott revealed the club had strategically upped the player’s training loads in between the Bulldogs and Eagles fixtures. A heavy training block over the break is standard at GMHBA Stadium, but the intensity had been turned up over the past few weeks. 

“It’s what we do through the middle period of the year, but we’re doubling down even more than we have done in previous years,” he said post match on Saturday. 

“We might cost ourselves a little short term but we’re going to try and set up our program to be at our best when it counts

“If we finish ninth because we try to prime ourselves to be at our best later in the year, then we’ll live with that.

“We haven’t been able to execute that over the last few years anyway. I don’t think that’s a reason to change that philosophy, it’s a reason to do it better.”

Geelong faces a big top eight clash with Richmond at the MCG on Saturday afternoon, and Scott expects to do it with Patrick Dangerfield back in the side, all but confirming the champion midfielder will come straight back into face the Tigers.

“The plan was to make sure that we've got enough work into him,” he said.

“So he's had an injury that he is rehabbing, but the issue was just making sure that again, we managed him in a way that's congruent with the overall plan.

“If we’ve got to take a bit of heat short term to give (our preferred guys) a chance to be humming towards the end of the year we’re going to do that.”