Geelong coach Chris Scott believes his side is still searching for cohesion, but says he’s not prepared to wait.
The Cats enjoyed 17 wins and a top four-finish in season 2016, showing their best football was good enough to be considered a premiership threat at the very least.
But as was proven to be the case across the season, and never more evident than the side’s 37-point preliminary final loss to Sydney, a lapse for just one quarter alone is all too costly time and time again.
“There is no question that going back to last year, we did have periods within games … where we just played so poorly that the opposition got a really strong run on against us,” Scott told Momentum Energy's #AskTheCoach.
“I think the pragmatic answer is that the shift in our group has meant that we’ve struggled to get perfect cohesion all the time and it’s difficult to get that until you actually get 60 to 70 games together as a group.”
“I think the good sides in the competition have shown that unequivocally.”
Though realistic that there is no quick fix for chemistry amongst a relatively new playing group, Scott believes there are ways around it.
“That’s not to say that we give up and say that we’ll just wait until we’ve got a little bit more time together before we iron out those flaws,” Scott added.
“We’ve got very specific plans when things aren’t working quite so well for us on the ground. Unfortunately we haven’t shown that we’ve been able to execute that well enough in the big moments.”
“That’s one of challenges – one of the many challenges for us this year – but we’ve worked hard on it and we’re confident in a really competitive year that we can smooth out that performance.”
Watch the full episode of #AskTheCoach via the video player above.