Cats TV spoke to James Kelly and AFL journalist Peter Ryan about the Cats preparation for their upcoming finals’ series on Argue the Toss.
 
The Cats have been preparing for this end of the season all year and although they’ve driven down this road on several occasions Kelly says the journey doesn’t get any easier.
 
Nevertheless, the unknown side of the road is always the exciting part of the voyage.
 
“I’m looking forward to the challenge of another finals’ series, you spend the whole season preparing for finals and hoping you make the finals, and once you actually get there it’s time to deliver,” Kelly said.
 
“Obviously we’ve been here a couple of times and we know what to expect but there’s still an element of the unexpected, you don’t know how teams are going to play or what’s going to happen on the day.
 
“We’ve just got to prepare ourselves as best we can and I look forward to the challenge.”
 
Last time the Cats met the Dockers at Simonds Stadium this year they were able to shut them down by 41 points, however, the Cats know from past experiences that finals’ pressure is very different.
 
“You probably don’t go back too far, we’ll look at the sides that we’ve played and what worked against them last time and what they’re doing differently now to last time we played them, because every team changes in the finals.”
 
Last week Fremantle decided to prepare for the finals early by resting nine key players from their best 22 against St Kilda. Ryan felt this was a strange approach that wouldn’t necessarily give them an advantage over Geelong in this week’s qualifying final. Instead he feels it could have a negative effect on their game.
 
“Strange preparation, ten players will play on Saturday who didn’t play last week against St Kilda, so their touch may be a little bit off which is probably an advantage for Geelong.”
 
“Freo has also had four pretty good games (against sides) outside the final eight, whereas Geelong has had a pretty tough preparation where they came up against Sydney and the one-point win over Brisbane, so I think they’ll be sharp and ready to go.”