Lowther on team selection this week

Julia [Crockett-Grills] had a little concern with her hamstring, which has now been treated so she is fine.

We missed her the last couple of weeks, just loving what she is doing as a small forward and linking up with our attacking chain, but also going inside and playing some midfield time which is a great thing to have.

Thorne has done a great job to try and keeps building her capacity to be consistent from week to week. She finds herself playing scrimmage this week, Erica [Fowler] we brought in this week for a bit of speed and a bit of height too to give us some flexibility.

We are blessed with a list that is pretty healthy, we had a meeting this and talked about how good that is as a program, to have such competition for positions. 

Lowther on Geelong's fourth quarters

I don't think there is a concern about running out games.

I think sometimes the way we play our game, and credit to the opposition too that maybe take away and force things to happen. But I think just getting some consistency around how we play the game from quarter one to quarter four, that can support our capacity to play the game in our way for longer.

I think we are falling away in that regard after half time, where we are spending a lot of tickets in the first half of the game. Whether it be trying to get the ball back through our defensive aspect or the way we move the footy, it hasn't been conducive to playing the game at a tempo that is consistent over four quarters.

We are aware that we get to the back end of games and there is a chance we might not quite have the energy that we need, it is not through a condition aspect because the girls are as fit as they have ever been which is great.

It is just about making sure that we play a brand that allows us to be more consistent, through how we play from the start of the game. 

Lowther on Prespakis' 50th game

I think what she has been doing on the field this year probably speaks for itself.

Her professionalism from the first day she walked into the club was at the really high end. I reckon she has come into that period when she was drafted, where that was the shift in sinking your teeth into a program from a full time perspective.

She has done that from the start so to play 50 games in that draft class of hers, as quick as she has is a real positive. It speaks a lot about her resilience and her capacity to keep playing.

Every year she steps up in regards to an aspect of her game, the way she studies the game, she is now a really strong mentor to our younger players, even though she is a young player herself.

She is an utter professional and she has been a great player to coach in my time, she was in my first draft year. 

Lowther on the Cats' developing ruck stocks

It is a tricky one. It has probably been our achilles heel in the last couple of years, in regards to our tall stocks and the looks we get.

We know we have got a really strong midfield and we are building the depth around that space, but we just need to give these taller players time.

They are coming from dual sports backgrounds, Cailtin [Tipping] has played one game and it is about how much time can we give her in a 12 game series to try and improve.

I think patience is the word that comes with it too, our players are patient. As a coach, you want to see some immediate impact from players you bring in, but it is going to take both Piper [Dunlop] and Caitlin significant periods of practice.

Yeah we want more, I thought Caitlin's game last week showed some positive signs, I think she won the first centre bounce hit-out. It gives her a lot of confidence to know that she can play at the level to a certain degree, then to build off it.

Piper is the same, their preparation over the pre-season was interrupted so for us to say come in and get 25 hit-outs and 15 possessions, isn't a reality.