It was a near miss for Chris Scott and his team in 2024, falling narrowly short of another Grand Final berth in a heartbreaking Preliminary Final loss at the MCG. 

In a year that had a little bit of everything, Scott reached his 12th Finals series in 14 years as head coach, appearing in the penultimate week of the season for the ninth time across that span. 

Despite the end result there were plenty of positives to takeaway from the season, including the emergence of some young talent and a number of positional changes that paid immediate dividends. 

Scott said the season laid a great foundation for the Cats to build on in 2025, when he joined SEN Mornings with Gerard Whateley on Tuesday. 

"I have got to say, I never find it easy, I have only found the end to a season easy twice in 14 years at the Cats," Scott said. 

"We have thought about it, but I think it is a real mistake to live in the past too much, we try to take the lessons and move on.

"I can make the case that it might have gone against us, but if you live your life thinking it wasn't our fault it was just bad luck, you pretty quickly end up with a losers mentality.

"When I look back I prefer to focus on the positives; we had a really good start to the year, we had some significant challenges through the middle, took the chance to experiment a little bit and got ourselves in a position where we were as good a chance as anyone of having a real go at the last month of the year."

Entering his 15th season in the top job, Scott is already the longest serving and one of the most successful coaches in Geelong Football Club history. 

With all the experience he has gained over a long career, the Cats leader understands the pros and cons that come with a high pressure job like his. 

Despite having a break during the off-season and a long pre-season to prepare, Scott told SEN that he still has not found a way to completely rejuvenate heading into a new year. 

"To an extent, but I have never found a way to completely refresh," Scott said. 

"I guess that is part of the challenge, I have never come away from an off-season feeling fully recharged and ready to go. That is the price of admission.

"To an extent I don't feel like you need to be, it is similar to what we say to our players. If you expect to feel perfect all the time, you are going to end up frustrated and a poor performer.

"It is a bad time to talk about this stuff because I am always anxious in the lead into our round one game, but likely that means you are ready for it."