’It is rarified air’: Chris Scott says Geelong Cats won’t take preliminary final lightly

Chris Scott knows about preliminary finals and the premiership-winning coach says they can be the most nerve-racking games of all.

Scott has coached the Cats to two grand finals. (Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

If there’s one man who know about preliminary finals, it’s Chris Scott.

Since taking the reins at Kardinia Park in 2011, Scott has coached the Cats in six, with his seventh to be played against the Demons in Perth this Friday.

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Scott, who featured in an additional three as a player, says preliminary finals can sometimes be more nerve-racking than the deciders they precede.

“You hear some people say they can get more anxious and nervous about a prelim final than they do about a grand final, I can understand that to some extent … especially as a younger player, when you hadn’t done it too often, it is rarified air,” Scott said on Monday night’s episode of AFL 360.

Just as the cliché says that a new season starts with the finals series, Scott believes preliminary and grand finals stand apart from the two earlier weeks of the play-offs.

“They do sit by themselves,” he said.

“Obviously the grand final is the pinnacle (but) I think most years, the best teams get to preliminary final weekend.

“It’s very unusual to see teams that are entrenched in the top four get knocked out before this round. You just know that they’re going to be high quality games.”

Scott coached the Cats to their last premiership in 2011. (Photo by Will Russell/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

Scott said Friday’s clash with the minor premiers would be both high-quality and high-stakes.

“It’s probably as much as anything, when you get to this stage of the year, the sense that if you can’t deliver, how bad you’re going to feel,” he said.

“Probably more than that, how long it is to get back to that position. It’s very rare that you come away thinking, ‘Oh well, we had a shot at it but we’ll be better for it next year’.

“You’re more think about how it’s 12 long months of hard work just to give yourself another chance.”

Coach Simon Goodwin, whose Demons Scott is tasked with overcoming, agreed.

“(Preliminary finals) are hard games to get to. You work incredibly hard to get to the position you’re in,” he said.

“As a coach, you want to make sure you get everything in place.”

With Melbourne having won its qualifying final, Goodwin has had an extra week off from footy to do just that.

The Demons took the time to take a break from footy — which included holding a quiz night in their Perth hub — but also to re-examine relevant recent fixtures.

The Demons studied both the Cats’ finals games and their own, as well as the last time the two sides met.

In a game that decided the minor premiership, Melbourne overcame a 44-point deficit to defeat Geelong after the siren in round 23.

Goodwin said there was only so much the Demons could learn from analysing the last-gasp win, however.

“Clearly we’ll take some learnings out of the game,” Goodwin said.

“There were periods of the game where Geelong were on top and there were periods of the game when we had some dominance as well. All it does is reaffirm the challenge that we’ve got in front of us this week.

“We took some learnings out of the game but it’s really not relevant now. It’s relevant who performs best and who executes best come Friday night.”

Four of the last seven clashes between the Cats and Demons have been decided by less than a goal. (Photo by Michael Klein)

Scott’s opinion differed.

“I think it’s relevant because it was so recent. It was a strange game, for a number of reasons,” he said.

“Both teams would have a level of respect for each other out of that game but also know that if they get things on their terms, they’re capable of playing all over the top of the other.”