Cats senior coach Chris Scott, during his first press conference in the lead up to the NAB Cup, said he’s looking forward to taking a large squad to Perth for the first preseason game this Saturday night at Subiaco.

“We’ll take a big squad as the rules allow, we think we’re in a pretty good spot for availability.”

Scott said the NAB Cup provides a great opportunity for the club’s more inexperienced players to have a shot on the ground.
“It gives them a good chance to execute their skills and play senior footy.”  
  
“We’d also like to see some of our younger players, not only our really inexperienced players like Jackson Thurlow, but our second, third and fourth year players that haven’t had much of an opportunity.”

“There are a few of them that we’ll be pushing really hard for round one. Whilst some of the older players tend to manage themselves through the NAB cup period, we’ve got a big group of young players that need to be playing close to their best straight away to press their case.”   

The club is also excited about having a number of new players out on the field, along with those who are back from injury.

“We effectively brought in 7 to 8 players from the squad that were available last year, when you consider [the likes of] Caddy, McIntosh, Rivers plus Cowan, Varcoe and Vardy [who are back from injury], that’s a big percentage of the team that wasn’t available to us last year. Although these guys aren’t all certainties to be in our best 22, they’re pretty close.”

Scott and the team are also feeling really positive about their trip over to Perth, especially Scott who really enjoyed his time in WA back in 2008, when he was the assistant coach for the Fremantle Football Club.   

“We are looking forward to going back. It’s a ground that we haven’t played all that well at, even though we have had some pretty close results. I loved my time over in Perth and 99.9% of the crowd are fantastic and really enthusiastic.”

‘’We are looking to play well first and foremost, as well as looking to get some experience over in Perth… I think it is really important that you play your very best football against the best teams in the hardest venues and both the Perth teams and Subiaco are tough." Scott said.