Chris Scott is a premiership coach but pressure is building as finals losses mount, Mark Robinson writes
CHRIS Scott is a premiership coach but the fact is 2011 was a long time ago and since then, the finals losses have mounted for Geelong and the pressure to win a flag is growing, MARK ROBINSON writes.
Mark Robinson
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THE longer Chris Scott coaches the more the pressure grows to win a premiership.
Since his first final series in 2011 when the Cats won three finals and the flag, Scott’s finals record stands at an unproductive two wins and six losses and one of those wins came when Hawthorn’s Isaac Smith missed a shot at goal after the siren.
He gets them there, no doubt, but the failures have mounted.
He would argue the past is irrelevant — and it is for the players as well — and, anyway, in almost every season he has coached the team has finished in a position to challenge.
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That can’t be ignored. It’s a ruthless competition. Eighteen teams fight for eight spots. There’s the draft, the trading period, a compromised schedule, injuries, suspensions, form and interstate travel, so a finals berth is certainly well won.
Indeed, Scott has coached 164 games, for 117 wins, two draws and 45 losses. His winning percentage is 72 per cent, which is the best winning percentage in the history of the game for anyone who has coached 164 games or more.
Ticks everywhere.
Except in September.
Clearly, Scott is a good coach, probably a very good coach. But greatness comes to those who win premierships. He has one, in 2011, the season after Mark Thompson departed.
One argument says Scott took over a superstar team and a premiership was there for the taking. That’s unfair. In the final game of 2010, and Thompson’s final game, Geelong lost to Collingwood by 41 points in the preliminary final and days later the game’s best player packed his bags and relocated to the Gold Coast.
Scott gathered a team many believed had run its race and, 12 months later, beat Collingwood by 38 points in the Grand Final.
Sound thinking would say he had a terrific team, but Scott had to bring it all together.
It’s a long time ago, 2011.
Their most recent finals capitulation was in the first half of last year’s preliminary final against Sydney.
Again, Scott would say that is irrelevant for this group.
It’s not for Cats fans.
They are frustrated that home-and-away success does not translate to September success. So would the club. So would Scott.
A superlative home-and-away record earns Geelong respect, but in 20 years who will care if Geelong averaged 17 wins a season for six seasons way back when? It’s about premierships, and as every season comes and goes without one, the pressure mounts.
Scott is coaching the best of his career.
Last month he was voted by his peers, with Port Adelaide’s Ken Hinkley, as the hardest coach to coach against.
It was a wonderful acknowledgment, but again, how does it stack up if the 2017 campaign is a colossal failure.
He has been bold this year, willing to change game plans and change roles for his players.
Perhaps in response to the loss to Sydney last year, the Cats changed the way they moved the ball. It was free-flowing, a lot more transition footy, and at 5-0, the Cats were cocka-hoop. Then came three losses, to Collingwood, Gold Coast and Essendon, and Scott changed again.
So much so, from Rounds 9-23, the Cats became the best defensive team in the competition in terms of scores against.
He’s used Harry Taylor forward and back, he dispensed with Rhys Stanley, shown faith in Wylie Buzza, played Jake Kolodjashnij on a wing, stuck fat with Zac Smith, introduced Parsons and played Menegola more forward and there’s probably several more adjustments we don’t know of.
Perhaps most importantly, he plonked Scott Selwood in the middle and said get to work and Selwood hasn’t let him down in terms of supplying a contest and limiting the opposition’s best player.
In fact, Selwood on either Dustin Martin or Trent Cotchin on Friday night and the success there of could decide the contest.
The point is Scott has been aggressive as coach, with game plans and positional and personnel changes and it has given them yet another top-two finish and the double chance, which is the eighth time in the past 11 seasons the Cats have achieved such an outstanding home-and-away return.
Again, massive tick.
But if last year’s loss to Sydney is irrelevant, then so now is this year’s home-and-away season.
AFL great Leigh Matthews, who coached Scott, says there’s two parts to a football season. It’s about qualifying for finals, firstly, before a new a new-ball game begins.
The Cats have conquered one and need to conquer the second.
If they don’t, they’ll continue to be a good side but not a great one.
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