‘’When I made the decision that I wanted to come back to Victoria, I came down the freeway to meet with the Cats, they were the first club I had spoken to,’’ Caddy said.
‘’I didn’t really have any connection to the club, I didn’t really know any of the boys or anything like that, but I came down and Joel Selwood, Jimmy Bartel and a few guys from the coaching and recruitment department were here (at the club to greet me).
Having experienced such an unexpected and warm welcome, Caddy couldn’t wait to be part of the team at Geelong Cats.
‘’It just made me feel as though I was really wanted at the club. I suppose the actual club and how it looks (also) appealed to me, the facilities are unbelievable and just the vibe I felt when I walked in here, I just wanted to be a part of this club.’’
One of the things that attracted Caddy to the Cats was their embedded culture, the respect amongst the players and their ability to play such a high standard of football with minimal fuss.
‘’The thing that stood out for me is that the boys have been together for a long time, they’ve bred a culture where they sort of just know what they expect from each other,’’ Caddy said.
‘’Out on the field they don’t rant and rave and make a lot of noise and fuss, but they know what the standard is and what they expect out of each other. They are just a hard working bunch of blokes.’’
Caddy told Cat’s TV that it is difficult to determine how the team compares against this years’ competition being preseason, however he believes the boys are looking good and he is excited to be given his chance to join them.
‘’It’s hard to say preseason because we can’t really gage how we are going against anyone else, but I think the boys are looking pretty good and training hard. Hopefully that translates into a really good year and I’m really excited about the year ahead.’’
Since making the transition from Gold Coast, Caddy has been working hard to learn as much as he can from the boys and senior coach, Chris Scott. He’s striving to be on top of their game plan and feels ready to make a valuable contribution to the club.
‘’To me it’s just been to keep learning our structures and our game plan, which is obviously very different from Gold Coast. That side of things are very different and as for the whole team it’s just moving forward from last year (and) working on the things that we struggled with.’’
Caddy enjoys playing up front and wants to get as much game time as possible to ensure that he keeps developing his game. However, he realises that he’ll have to work extra hard to meet the standard of the Cats’ current forward line.
‘’I’m sort of a midfielder slash half forward (and) coming to a club where there is obviously a number of great midfielders, (means) it’s up to me to make my way into that midfield, but I’m not expecting to jump straight in their because we’ve got the likes of Joel Selwood, Jimmy Bartel and Paul Chapman,” Caddy said.
‘’It’s not going to be easy to just walk into the midfield but I want to play up forward (and) just keep developing my game. (I want to continue to) learn off those guys so eventually one day I can be a player like they’ve been for the footy club.
