Geelong coach Chris Scott has laughed off suggestions his side are entering a rebuild, despite their dismal 63-point loss at the hands of Carlton on Friday night.
The Cats are now 8-6 after 15 rounds, but more worryingly, have won just one of their last seven outings.
The questions are naturally being raised around the longevity of some of Geelong’s older stars, headlined by captain Patrick Dangerfield and triple premiership forward, Tom Hawkins.
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Despite concerns around the lack of prime-aged players in their side, namely any midfielders, Scott isn’t worried in the slightest.
The Cats lost clearances 50-39, but it was the work of Carlton’s Patrick Cripps, who had 41 touches and a whopping 14 clearances, which really proved a headache for Scott’s men.
But, Scott, who has lead Geelong to two premierships in his 14 years at the helm, has made the club’s intentions for the rest of 2024 very clear.
“While it was a bad performance, I don’t think you sit back 8-6 at this stage of the season and think, ‘Oh well, now we’re rebuilding’,” Scott said post match.
“Haven’t done that for 14 years. Not going to start now.”
Scott is still confident the Cats are able to make finals, even without a key ruckman and a deep-running midfield.
“What we won’t do is concede and say, ‘oh well, they (Carlton) are better than us, so now we’ve got to slip back to the pack’ … we’re still optimistic about what we can do,” he said.
“I still think our best is pretty good, but we’ve just got some holes where we feel as if we need to be a bit creative at the moment in how we go after filling those roles and sometimes that causes a bit of pain.”
Scott did heap praise on the second-placed Blues.
“If a really good team came up against Carlton playing like that, it would be interesting to see how they’d go because they were very, very good,” he said.
And he’s not one for making excuses, but Scott pointed towards Geelong’s “tough” draw, which sees them face Essendon and Collingwood in the coming weeks.
Both sides are also in September contention.
“Do you want to know the honest answer? The one that coaches don’t normally give? When you look at the draw, we’re in a really tough period of the draw,” Scott said.
Geelong sit in seventh on the ladder after their loss, but will likely fall out of the top eight by the end of the round.