Dan Lowther on ... Pride Round

It's a pretty special round. When you look at all the commentary over the last couple of weeks in preparation for Pride Round, it really does make you stop and think just how hard people had it over the journey to just be themselves, and I think that's what our club pride ourselves on, among other things, that you can step into this place and you can be yourself and be loved and respected no matter what your background or belief (is).

It's a pretty special round, and I'm aware too that the history of the AFLW and women in football are built around women being themselves and having pride and respect and feeling safe in their environment. That's one thing we want to make sure, that when you step foot into our doors your safe and protected and loved, and that's a journey we'll continue to take in that space.

Dan Lowther on ... what's changed for the Cats

I think a lot has changed - the first thing that quite visibly has changed is the list has turned over quite a bit over the last 12 months. We just felt like we needed to keep changing things from an on-ground perspective to give us our best change to be in games for longer.

I thought our last season, Season 6, historically our defence was quite good, (it was) a bit of a dour type of game style. We were in games for up to about three quarters, but just couldn't quite find the win, well now we're winning.

That belief in a system that we're playing - but also that system that we're playing is built on the strengths of the group, so that's been a big driver. Winning games helps the belief factor.

The core group of players has been around for three, four, five years, whether it be VFLW before the (team) came into the AFLW system. So having that synergy and connection is clearly coming through now.

Dan Lowther on ... taking on West Coast

It will give the players some stronger belief that they've beaten a team before, which historically for us over the last few years, there hasn't been too many wins, so to know that you're coming up against a team that you've had some success over, it certainly does help.

But they're a quality team - over the past three weeks, they've had three rising star nominations, and they're only getting better. Full credit to Michael Prior and the way they're going about their football, they're a team that's going to be on the rise.

We've got our work cut out - I don't think the belief factor is the only thing that's going to get us across the line this week, knowing that we've beaten them before certainly gives us an advantage mentally, but I think the way we've been playing our footy at the moment, we're confident that we'll execute a style that is going to be good enough to hopefully win this week but also to go forward.

Dan Lowther on ... Amy McDonald and Georgie Prespakis

(They've been) outstanding. Georgie, obviously being a high draft pick last year, Season 6, she's had an immediate impact on our group. Her talent has just gone through the roof in Season 7 and we've all seen it.

Her ability to evade and exit stoppages in different directions is pretty uncanny, and it opens up multiple avenues for us to go forward, which is probably what we've missed the last couple of weeks with her out there. We've been a little bit more dour and contested-based in that space without her.

But she steps out and then Nina (Morrison) comes in and then Nina plays two outstanding games in two weeks to fill that gap. So we certainly can't forget how Nina can impact our team, but Georgie has been outstanding.

And you through in Amy's progression from year to year to year, the numbers keep rising. That's the thing we talked about last season - the good teams have two or three mids who are averaging 20 possessions-plus. We just weren't having that. We were having one midfielder get 18 or 19 average a game. Now we're getting two or three players who are averaging plus-20. Which is what we're after.

It just goes to show that that mix of players, the training, the strength and conditioning, and just their progression, is the right way.

Dan Lowther on ... team selection

We've got some difficult decisions to make, that's for sure. We've got pretty much a full list to choose from, which is outstanding. With Georgie coming back in this week after a two-week suspension, there'll be one coming out. We just need to sit down as a match committee.

We already have had some good conversations. We just need to make sure that whatever change we make from here isn't going to upset the flow of our winning formula at the moment. It's really stiff for players at this point to come out because we're winning, and it's a difficult conversation to have that someone is unlucky to come out.

We've also got Rach Kearns too who is also breathing down my neck to try to get back into the team. She's fit, firing and ready to go. Renee Garing ... we've got a number of players who are basically knocking my door down to say 'hey, pick me', but we're going to have some really interesting conversations in the next 24 hours, that's for sure.