Scott on how the team is tracking

We will put a good team out there with guys that have had a good preparation.

I think there has been a little bit of noise over the last few weeks, especially given we didn't play a couple of guys in our last practice match. It would have been our preference for them to play, but the good news is that they will be available for this game and have had a really good preparation.

I have come to grips with the fact that I am in that pessimistic stage of the preparation personally, I have never gone into a season thinking this has just been perfect. You are always in the mindset where you are thinking about managing risk and thinking about what could go wrong, by its very nature there is uncertainty when you haven't played a real game.

We will all feel a little bit more comfortable when we see some exposed form, so I could speculate as to how we are going and likely get it wrong.

Even with that backdrop of personal pessimism, I think our players with the preparation they have had are really optimistic about what is possible this year. 

Scott on the availability of some key Cats

Maybe there is a little bit more doubt on Gryan [Miers] at this stage, which will become clear pretty soon. I think it is also worth saying, we don't have a very high tolerance for pushing guys that aren't ready.

Jeremy [Cameron] and Bailey [Smith] will clearly be ready from a physical perspective and they will play.

Gryan, it is one of those situations where I think 15 years ago he would be a certainty, maybe 25 years ago because it was a badge of honour playing with these things. We are much less tolerant of that stuff now, we don't ask players to play through things that might mean that is going to hinder them later in the season, and later in life to be honest.

He had surgery on a thumb, he has got the all clear to play, but just because he can play doesn't mean he should. 

Scott on the ruck set-up

We are holding Rhys [Stanley] back a little bit, so I can say that he won't play.

We are not working through it, we are clear on the way we are going to set-up.

I probably repeat what you are sick of hearing from previous years, that we don't think of our preferred ruck set-up and then the alternatives behind that.

It is more that we feel like one of our strengths is a variety of options in there, not only with the way we pick the team but once we pick the team, it is likely that we have three or sometimes four guys that can all play in the ruck. The fifth player on the bench is only an accelerant to that. 

Scott on Mitch Edwards' pre-season

I have really liked it.

It feels like, especially for the people that watch us a little closer, it has been a long time coming for Mitch, and Toby Conway I am really confident will get there as well. He is a little bit slower, but those two guys give us room for optimism.

If we could have them up and going at some point, we are going to have a ruck set-up that is different to the one we have gone with for the last decade and a half, since Brad Ottens retired.

Really big guys who offer a point of difference to our incumbent ruckman. 

Scott on the Gold Coast Suns

It is not any more complicated than having a look at what they have built over a long period of time.

I am not very good at predicting where teams are going to be, but you look at the talent available and the progression of those teams over a period.

It is hard to go past the two Queensland teams as being the favourites, I think that is logical but not a given. 

Scott on the role of Geelong's Irish duo on Friday

They will be in the team, Mark [O'Connor] might be the best prepared AFL player in the game at the moment, given his Irish off-season.

We like the development of those guys, Mark has been around a while so I'll focus on Oisin [Mullin] a little bit more. We see his game evolving from a bit more of a defensive bias, to one where he can really complement the strengths that we have.

In particular as a running team, he is just a supreme athlete in every sense of the description. He not only has elite speed, but he has got great endurance and power as well.

It is nice to know we have those options, but I don't think our coaching group is sitting here at the moment pigeonholing the roles that those two are going to play.