Geelong chief Brian Cook says Cats will review footy department after 2018 finals exit
GEELONG’S quest for premiership glory has fallen short again. And chief executive Brian Cook says his club will look at every aspect as it tries to work out why the Cats have failed.
GEELONG chief executive Brian Cook has signalled the need of a full-scale review of the club’s football department and recruitment strategy after the Cats crashed out of the finals at the hands of Melbourne.
But Cook defended the club’s decision to bring back favourite son Gary Ablett.
“I think it has (paid off),” Cook said, as part of a wide-ranging interview on SEN Breakfast.
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“It depends what the expectations of people were, I think some people felt that Gary Ablett coming home thought it was the difference between us playing in the grand final and not.
“The reality is I think the success of our club is making sure the bottom 12 players improve as much as the three guys (Ablett, Patrick Dangerfield and Joel Selwood).”
Ablett is contracted next year.
Cook said there was strong evidence to support the club’s chase for Western Bulldogs’ free agent Luke Dahlhaus.
The Herald Sun revealed last month Geelong had offered him a four-year deal.
Geelong has also made preliminary enquiries about St Kilda onballer Jack Steven, who remains contracted to the Saints for two more years.
But a trade deal for the Lorne product would be difficult for the Cats unless Tim Kelly leaves.
Cook also discussed:
THE 2018 SEASON
“It’s still very raw and to say the least, we’re really disappointed about the weekend and so the analysis has begun for us. Since the weekend, and there’s a lot of meetings that we planned this week particularly around the coaches and our strategy moving forward … which will run into list management strategy as well. I think we’re up for a deep analysis and we’re ready for it.”
THE GAME PLAN
“I’m not a coach but to me it’s rather obvious you’ve got the possession type football and the pressure type football and we’ve shown some weakness I think in relation to the pressure.”
THE RECRUITMENT STRATEGY
“I think we have to look at that (recruitment philosophy) I can’t say too much but I think we need to do that. I think the evolution of the draft has changed so much that you can err on the side of trading or picking up young kids or the combination of both, we have to decide whether we continue to go through both or whether we err to one side or the other or go back to simply just drafting kids. They’re the decisions we need to make.”
TIM KELLY
“We really haven’t got any intention to trade Tim, we’re hoped we’re not forced into a position where we have to think more deeply about that because we think contracts are contracts and we think people leaving half way through a contract isn’t right, so we still wish to keep Tim and we’ll be very determined to do that and we see him as a very important part of our future.”
LUKE DAHLHAUS
“If you looked at our game on the weekend we had one tackle inside our (forward) 50 in the first half. A player like Luke Dahlhaus is of great interest to us because he applies that pressure.”
Originally published as Geelong chief Brian Cook says Cats will review footy department after 2018 finals exit