It has always been fascinating to see the way Geelong approaches the development of their young players. 

Where other teams choose to throw their emerging talents straight into the starting line-up, the Cats have always opted for a more patient approach, building up their new recruits at training and through the VFL before deploying them at the top level.

You only have to look at Geelong's team in their most recent outing against Collingwood, which featured seven players that started their career on the club's Rookie list and two more that were selected in the final five picks of the 2023 National Draft. 

A key driver in that space is Geelong's Head of Development, Nigel Lappin who joined this week's episode of 'To the Final Bell,' providing incredible insight into the Cats strategies with their young talents. 

"Obviously 'Scotty' sets a great environment for the footy club," Lappin told Meg McDonald and Cameron Ling.

"I know it is the way that he thinks, it is about long term success over the short term gains. For us, we get helped out a little bit because we have got a really strong senior list, it is a really difficult team to break into.

"That is what we preach, we try and teach them the fundamentals of the game. Clearly the three phases of the game are critical to our game style which is contest, defence and attack in that order.

"It takes a while sometimes, the best players that they are in the Coates League come into the AFL and think that being the best player means going out and getting 30 disposals, it is clearly not the way.

"Particularly when they are going to come into the team most likely and play a role."

Listen to any Geelong player discuss their development and nearly all of them will credit Nigel Lappin for helping them in various stages of their journey. 

Lappin has been hard at work with the Cats most recent draft crop, with the likes of Jay Polkinghorne and Keighton Matofai-Forbes already impressing early in their career's at Geelong. 

Another draftee who has shown plenty of potential early in 2025 is Patrick Retshcko, Lappin reminiscing on a story that aptly described the Cats development first approach. 

"I will give you an example, Patrick Retschko was asking us about role compliance as opposed to going and finding the footy," Lappin explained. 

"He is a really smart young player so we are just working through some of those challenges at the moment.

"I was talking to him in the cafe, Max Holmes overheard and he came over and told him a story.

"In his first year at the footy club he had 19 touches, did everything that the coaches wanted him to do but didn't think he necessarily played that well. Charlie Constable had 42 touches, but Max was the one that got brought in the next week because he did what the coaches were looking for."