DESPITE its straight-sets exit from this year's finals,Geelong still firmly believes it can mount a challenge for the premiership in2015.
That was the message from Cats skipper Joel Selwood andcoach Chris Scott at the club's best and fairest on Thursday night.
"This season, we beat 14 of the 17 other clubs,"Selwood said in his speech at the function. "We continued to cause fearfor our opposition.
"The industry wants us and expects us to fall away.But we refuse to.
"The Geelong Football Club will not wave the whiteflag and accept that our time has come or that our time has gone.
"We demand that everyone finds a way to get better,as individuals, as a collective. Players, coaches and staff members are all apart of that.
"Reputations amount for nothing any more. We willlearn lessons from this season, we will stay hungry and we will move into 2015preparations very shortly.
"We’re going to play bold, we’re going to play braveand we’re just going to take the game on, and that Geelong spirit will foreverlive on."
Scott echoed Selwood's sentiments in his speech to thepassionate gathering of Cats fans.
"We have got a lot to be optimistic about,"Scott said.
"We're not going to make any promises here tonight.But if we work hard and find a way to improve, we believe that we're a chance,if we do all of those things, to compete with anyone.
"We have done some work in the last couple of yearsto prepare for the future.
"We're not necessarily saying that the future is now,but it is possible boys. It is possible. We're well prepared.
"We won't take any short cuts preparing for thelonger-term, but we have prepared well enough to give ourselves a chance everysingle year, and over the last couple of years we haven't been quite goodenough.
"I firmly believe that in the next couple of yearswe're as good a chance as anyone."
Geelong has made the top eight in eight consecutiveseasons, but it has only a 1-5 record in finals since it won the 2011premiership.
The Cats are in the box seat to secure Melbourne-listedforward/ruck Mitch Clark as he looks set to reignite his AFL career.
