Chris Scott on... Patrick Dangerfield reaching the 300 game milestone

It is difficult to come up with the right words to do it justice. I think 300 games generally speaks for itself for any player. 99 players in the history of the game speaks to just how significant it is, but in terms of Pat's career 300 is a blimp on the journey, the individual accolades aren't something he will be happy with me speaking about in this forum as they are on the record and they speak for themselves a bit.

From a Club's perspective, we were at a real point of transition when Pat came in and he changed our Club for the better. Obviously on the field but that wasn't the most significant part in my opinion, he changed us off the field, gave our playing group confidence and he has really influenced the culture that we continue to try to build. We understand that evolving and he has just been so integral to that. The privilege for all of us to have been a part of that journey can't be understated. 

Chris Scott on... what Patrick Dangerfield is like inside the Club

He has found a way to embody what we want to be as a footy department in particular, we want to create space for all the individuals to be themselves so when one of your best players lives that and sets that example it makes all the younger players that are a little less secure in their footy journey a bit more comfortable to be who they are without having a really domineering type leader as your best player. Pat, he models the behaviour pretty well. Some of it doesn't come off as well as he would like but he is doing his best. 

Chris Scott on… Expectations

We want to be in the moment and we want to embrace it. We don't really think there is a choice, to be honest. You could try and protect yourself from that expectation and protect yourself from all the extra stuff that comes with a finals series but it's really difficult in this day and age. So, I think the other choice, the more practical choice is to embrace it. Enjoy it for what it is, but again, not be towed away into a way of thinking that it's external to what we're trying to do, we want to be in the moment. We try to set ourselves up every year to give our club the best chance to be a part of it and we completely appreciate that comes with expectation. But we'd much rather have that pressure, the privilege of that pressure, than be trying to explain why we're not in contention at this time of the year. You can't do great things in life without a little bit of anxiety as your partner. 

Chris Scott on… Jeremy Cameron’s Injury

The people looking after that are really confident and so I am echoing what they've said.

They were really confident in the day or two post-game that he'd be available for the first final. That case has only strengthened in the last day or two. It's the same for Rhys Stanley, so those two are right on track. I think even, speaking to Jeremy, and Rhys as well, they've both been running, they're on the right track.

Chris Scott on… Breaking the All-Time Membership Record

Pre pandemic, football clubs, certainly ours, tended to think in terms of the value that we can provide our members and it wasn't until the pandemic where we couldn't provide that value that you realise just how irrational the support from our members was. It sort of defies any value proposition, it's so much more than that and we'll be forever thankful because we were on our knees. We weren't sure whether we were going to survive or whether the members would come back at all, much less hang on through two years of virtually no footy, so to think we're going to have that stand finished next year and have 40,000 screaming Cats fans 9,10 or 11 times a year into the future is just, it's hard to describe how exciting that is.

We can't guarantee necessarily what we're going to do in the future but we will guarantee our members that we're going to do the same thing with them that we do with our players every year, and that's to look them in the eye and say we're going to throw everything into this season to get ourselves into the position, hopefully, where we can have a crack at it.

So, a big thank you to all of you, it really is amazing. It’s hard to come to terms with how much support we've had, we'll forever be thankful.