Scott on turning the tide early

For me personally, and our coaches all had different priorities through the night, but from my perspective to sum it up, I thought we were just comprehensively outplayed early in the game.

It looked bad to be honest, if you drew up what do they want versus what we want, I would have said that they basically had everything they want and we couldn't get the game on our terms.

Sometimes the look and feel of the game isn't necessarily reflected on the scoreboard, I think it was four goals to two and it felt like 10 goals to two. They missed some shots, and obviously they would be disappointed they didn't capitalise on that dominance.

In that context, it is very hard in the modern game to change that, especially when some of the levers we normally have to pull weren't in the team.

We did need to depend on changing the way we play, rather than positional moves. I thought our players were able to achieve that, so that would be my summary. 

Scott on Geelong's scores from turnover

It was a bit of a transitional game, rather than a stoppage game. They have been so good in attack throughout the year.

We would never just go all out attack versus all out attack, but we did feel that if we were a bit more aggressive in the way we defended some of their ball movement, it might give us some chances back the other way.

But that is risky, you have to be quite assertive in the way you play and risk that they might get some easy goals, which they actually did at times.

But statistically that is a good number, 101 points from turnover. 

Scott on Oisin Mullin's job

He [Pickett] is in the best handful of players in the comp and when he kicks the first goal, his confidence is up.

Again, in the context of if they drew it up a certain way, it would have been get the ball forward from a centre bounce and Pickett kicks the first goal. For us, it is like well that is not ideal.

So that is one of the specific examples of how our players were able to change the game. If this guy gets completely off the leash, then we are in big trouble.

A lot falls to an Irishman and almost single-handedly, he was able to at least quell his influence. I don't count stats generally in the box, I go a little bit more off-field with individuals.

But we thought that Mullin was on top early, maybe somewhere in the second quarter and he touched the ball seven times after kicking the first goal. I thought that contest was going our way for most of the night. 

Scott on the Cats forward structure

We really liked Shannon Neale's game.

Even early in the game when we didn't think we had the run of play, when we gave him half a look, he looked like he was in really good shape. He kicked for goal well and gave those smalls a little bit more of an opportunity at ground level.

We have changed the way we play, as we always do when personnel changes. Cameron not being there, maybe in a perverse way gives Shannon a little bit more opportunity to be the main man.

Then we have brought some players back. Close and Miers have been mainstays of our team for a long time and for one reason or another, they just weren't quite where we would have liked them to be, almost solely because of injury issues.

I think the last two weeks have been good examples for us, that those running forwards are important players for us. You throw Wiltshire and Mannagh in there as well, but that combination is important.