Chris Scott said in the lead-up to the Cats' 22 point opening round loss to Collingwood that he may have made a mistake persisting with Esava Ratugolea as a forward/ruck for as long as he did.

On Friday night, in front of almost 90,000 fans at the MCG, Ratugolea showed the footy world what the Cats coaches have been seeing across the pre-season: that his explosive mix of athleticism and ability to read the incoming ball, could make for a very good key defender given some time.

The 24-year-old looked confident and assured against the Magpies on Friday night. At times we saw deft defensive craft; the ability to split the contest, bring the ball to ground and give the Cats half-backs a chance to slingshot forward, but other times he backed his instinct, flew for the footy, and out-marked everyone around him.

Tom Hawkins, speaking to Channel 7 post-match said Ratugolea was a positive for the Cats, despite the loss.

“He was really strong,” Hawkins said. “He’s had a really strong pre-season and that’s been the word out of our camp.”

“I haven’t had the opportunity to play on him much during my pre-season, but it’s been a joy to watch him transition from playing key forward/ruck down to being a key defender so I thought he was great. Some crucial, big contests that he was halving and sometimes even marking the ball.

“I thought he was a real positive.”

Off-season foot surgery meant Hawkins himself came into the game underdone and the site of him hobbling early gave Geelong fans pause, but the three time premiership player ran out the game and said he was pleased with how he was feeling post-match, despite the result.  

“I feel really good,” he said.

“I got a bit of a knock, it always seems to be the way. I haven’t had the base that I would like but the beauty of being in the game for a while is that you tend to pick things up relatively quickly, so plenty of room for improvement.

“It certainly wasn’t my best game of footy tonight, I played on Darcy Moore for a fair bit of the night and he had a real impact. So, a little bit disappointing, but the body is feeling great. “

Geelong takes on Carlton next Thursday night at the MCG.