While you’d assume the Cats’ big name off-season acquisitions have spent the summer months learning the Geelong way, according to Chris Scott, Jeremy Cameron, Isaac Smith and Shaun Higgins have brought plenty of their own ideas to Cattery as the club prepares for it’s Round 1 clash with the Crows next Saturday.

Cameron, Smith and Higgins all arrived for pre-season training ahead of their senior teammates in December after joining the club during the trade and free agency period in November.

Speaking to SEN as part of the Cats Membership Day, Scott said each player had been a standout on the track but what he’s been particularly pleased with are the learnings they’ve brought with them after 618 games combined in the AFL system, and the 11th year coach has made adjustments accordingly.

“They’ve all been terrific,” Scott said.

“We’ve absolutely been able to identify what they’ve offered in their training which is easy because almost universally the high performers in games are the high performers on the training track as well.”

“But they’ve all come from good systems in their own right. North have played in prelims not that long ago, Hawthorn, along with Richmond have been the best team over the last decade and GWS played in a Grand Final the year before.”

“So we as an organisation really have tried to say rather than us telling you what we want from you we want to open our ears first and learn what we can from those good organisations.”

“All three of them have been really good at communicating that and we’ve adjusted some of the things we do based on some of the things they’ve said.”

All three players are expected to make the trip to Adelaide having all taken part in Geelong’s pre-season wins over Collingwood and Essendon.

Smith, the former Hawk, was particularly damaging on a wing against the Bombers, racking up 25 touches on a wing, while Cameron and Higgins did enough to demonstrate they’re going to more than useful weapons for Scott to deploy this season.