Chris Scott admits Geelong suffered “the culmination” of nearly four weeks of poor form in the shellacking by Gold Coast in Darwin on Thursday night.
The Cats conceded their highest score since 1994 in the 64-point defeat and, despite managing to kick exactly 100 points themselves, spent more than half the night out of the contest.
With several key players out for various reasons against a Suns side that also played in Darwin last week, the match could yet prove to be a blip by September.
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But it also extended the previously unbeaten Geelong’s losing streak to three matches and, according to both Scott and his former captain Joel Selwood, deepened some problems for the 2022 premiers.
Asked if he could blame the conditions or the breakdown of their defensive system for the nature of the loss, Scott said “it was even more than that”.
“We’ve been aware probably for a good three weeks now, probably even (including) the last 15 minutes of the game before, we’ve just been a little bit off,” the coach admitted.
“Tonight was kind of the culmination of that. We got beaten by some good players around the ball. It was a very unusual scoreline, to give up that many scores is unusual for us. All the stats, as you work down the list didn’t get any better.
“From our point of view it’s not as if we have a history of playing this poorly consistently so we always do tend to look on the bright side and try to find the positives.
“But we’re not playing well and we’ve got to try to galvanise the group. We’ve got a longer break heading into another good team in GWS (next Saturday night) and we can arrest things, I’ve got no doubt about that.”
Scott said “you’re always concerned” about a poor run of form impacting the players.
“But it’s a balance between... not glossing over it — we’re clearly not going to do that — but we’re also not going to overreact,” he said.
“That’s the challenge, trying to find that reality and hopefully that’s somewhere in the middle there but it’s clear we’re off and we’ve got some problems that we need to fix.”
Selwood, speaking in Channel 7’s post-game coverage, said Scott’s calm demeanour belied how frustrated he would be.
The former skipper said even the return of Mitch Duncan, Jeremy Cameron and Tom Hawkins would not paper over the “cracks” appearing at the Cats.
“He’s always very balanced but it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t go home and kick the cat and bite his pillow,” Selwood said.
“Because there are a few problems. There’s a few cracks there.
“They need to be better around the ball, the defence is getting scored on too easy at the moment and even the way that they’re taking it in the forward line — it’s not just one part of the ground.
“They’ll get a couple of players back next week but they’re going to have to play a lot better to take on GWS.”
![Geelong have now lost three games on the bounce after starting the season with seven wins in a row.](jpg/bd1cb69358c57192f061651c4824b93870bbd3dbe2c3.jpg?imwidth=650&impolicy=sevennews_v2)
Geelong remain defiant that they are taking the right approach with managing their players through the season.
Rhys Stanley was substituted out last week and rested this week while Cam Guthrie’s minutes have dropped each week since his return from injury and was subbed out against the Suns.
Scott’s post-match concerns about the Cats’ cohesion have raised the question that they may just need to tweak their plans.
“Always big picture with Chris ... but there’s challenges there,” Selwood said.
“Those young players, it’s a time to step up. They’ve been waiting for their time.”
Scott, meanwhile, batted away questions about umpiring.
He made headlines last week with a lengthy speech on the state of the game, and then watched Geelong concede the first eight free kicks on Thursday night.
The Suns finished with 25 to the Cats’ 14.
“We didn’t even really think about it tonight,” Scott said of the umpiring.
“We just thought that we got beaten in every area and sometimes when you get beaten around the ball you can get a bit desperate, grab an arm or something like that so it’s probably more likely that sort of stuff.”
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