Geelong’s focus on a strong finals campaign, not beating Port Adelaide at all costs, paid off handsomely after the Cats romped into a preliminary final without key players Tom Stewart and Sam De Koning.
Geelong’s premiership tilt was strengthened significantly on Thursday night after Chris Scott opted for a conservative approach with the star duo and his side still rumbled to an 84-point win over the disappointing Power.
Stewart (hamstring/illness) and De Koning (knee) will now have precious extra time to prepare for the ninth preliminary final of Scott’s decorated 14-season tenure.
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Speaking post-game at the Adelaide Oval, Scott rightly backed in play the long game with two of his key defenders.
“If we took a risk with those guys and it backfired it wouldn’t have been impossible, but the degree of difficulty would’ve gone through the roof,” Scott explained.
“The plan was to be conservative with those guys and hopefully still win the game, so we’re feeling good about that decision now, but we’re not getting ahead of ourselves.
Geelong have registered their two biggest wins of the 2024 season in back-t0-back games, fresh off their 93-point win over West Coast that finished their home-and-away season on a high.
But as Scott has seen first-hand earlier this season against the likes of Carlton and Gold Coast, it doesn’t take much to be on the wrong end of a drubbing like what they handed Port Adelaide on Thursday night.
“We’ve seen it through the year with the swings through the season … you’re a little bit of an off night from being badly beaten,” Scott continued.
“We keep seeing that so that will keep our feet on the ground.
“They’re perfect examples of when you play well you go, ‘Oh, great decision’ and if we’d have played poorly it would have been about, ‘What would’ve happened if we’d had Stewart and De Koning?’
“But our focus is on having a good month, not getting desperate and trying to bluff our way into a prelim … you can’t do that in finals.”
Scott admitted he was still struggling with the decision to play Stewart or not after he picked up a hamstring complaint in his last outing before illness tipped the scales.
“He had a good couple of weeks of training and we were really optimistic that he would be right,” the coach said.
“He was in full training for a session on Monday, we thought he was going to be right, but … we were still weighing that up.
“Then he started to come down with a bit of a flu, then by the time he woke up he was crook enough that he wouldn’t play, so it just sort of made the decision for him and us a little bit easier.
“But, hand on heart, we were leaning towards not playing him and we’d made the conservative call with De Koning as well.”
The move to not play Stewart also would have thrown elements of Port Adelaide’s plan out the window too, having successfully sent pressure forward Jed McEntee to Stewart in their last three meetings with overwhelming success.
Beyond the defensive duo however, Tom Hawkins (foot) and Cam Guthrie (Achilles) will play in the VFL on Saturday morning as they attempt to push their claims after long layoffs.
“Our plan all along was for them to play this week so we’ll push on with that,” Scott added.
“We’ll stay optimistic, stay open-minded, keep all the options on the table, and make good decisions in the moment.
“I’ll resist the temptation to forecast too much; I could sit here and speculate, and it wouldn’t help anyone.”
Despite the absence of Hawkins up forward against the Power, the Cats’ forward line shone as bright as any this season – and having kicked 18 behinds for the night, could have remarkably been ever better.
Superstars Jeremy Cameron and Tyson Stengle finished the night with four goals apiece, while Gryan Miers and Shaun Mannagh each kicked three majors.
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Hawkins’ replacement Shannon Neale kicked 2.2 from his nine disposals and nine marks, making the approaching selection call on who to pick in two weeks time (pending Hawkins’ fitness) more intriguing by the week.
Asked if he would like to see a preliminary final played in Geelong, not the MCG where it will certainly be scheduled, Scott replied with a mischievous gleam in his eye.
“I think my position has always been that you should play your home games wherever you want,” he confessed.
“But the AFL run the finals series and they’ve got to work out whether that’s the right thing or not, and they’re balancing a whole lot of things that I don’t think about that much.
“They’ve got the good of the game front of mind and all I care about is the Cats; so it’s logical that we would disagree when we have those different perspectives.
“But a prelim final (in Geelong)? Why not? It’s a pretty good stadium.
“What I will say is prelim finals will be played at some point at the Gold Coast, or at Giants Stadium, or Hobart.”
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