Geelong now faces a massive off-season with the club set to be a major player during the AFL trade period
Champion defender Harry Taylor is yet to inform Geelong whether he wishes to play on next season, or retire. It comes as the Cats begin their exit meetings following Saturday’s disappointing Grand Final loss to Richmond.
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Geelong defender Harry Taylor’s future will become clearer in the coming days as the Cats swiftly move into player exit meetings.
Chief executive Brian Cook on Sunday said Taylor, 34, was yet to inform the club of his intentions for next year.
Geelong gave its players Sunday to digest the losing Grand Final performance and will start the first wave of post-season chats on Monday.
The Cats will remain on the Gold Coast for the next 48 hours to work through the list, with coach Chris Scott and football manager Simon Lloyd to lead the discussions.
“No, he (Taylor) hasn’t said anything yet and we’ll probably leave it like that for a day or two,” Cook said.
“The difficult job that the footy leaders have now – Chris Scott and Simon Lloyd – is to have interviews with players before they leave the club.”
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While many assumed Taylor would follow Gary Ablett into retirement, the champion defender has not made his intentions public and been coy about his playing future.
Asked as recently as last week, the 280-gamer said he would not let the result of the Grand Final shape his opinion either way.
“Should we win or lose, that won’t be something I use to dictate what happens next year,” he said last week.
“I will just go and enjoy every single moment.”
Taylor, who is still regularly assigned the opposition’s best key forward, was one of Geelong’s best in Saturday night’s losing Grand Final, keeping Tom Lynch to just one goal.
The Cats have been thrilled with the progress of young key position defender Sam de Koning, a No. 19 draft pick who is the long-term heir apparent to a spot in key position defence when it is that Taylor and fellow backman Lachie Henderson move on.
Other Cats players still out of contract from the losing Grand Final side include Tom Hawkins, Rhys Stanley, Henderson, Zach Tuohy and Sam Simpson.
CATS TO MAKE BIG LIST CALLS
Nakia Cockatoo’s certain move to Brisbane could help secure some trade currency that will help Geelong close the Jeremy Cameron deal.
Geelong list manager Stephen Wells will now turn his attention to a handful of tough decisions at the Cats, including the future of full back Harry Taylor.
The Cats are keen for 30-year-old Lachie Henderson to play on and he would like to continue after an excellent bounce-back season.
But immediately the club will have to find a way to broker a deal for GWS free agent Cameron, who shapes as the weapon that will keep them in premiership calculations.
Against Richmond Patrick Dangerfield did not prove the answer and while Gary Rohan at times dragged Dylan Grimes away from the action he had another extremely quiet Grand Final.
Geelong’s position is that GWS should accept pick 10 as a free agency compensation pick for Cameron, but their firm intent is to force a trade with the Cats.
Geelong’s draft hand is now 11, 13 and 18 after the Grand Final loss, and with Brandan Parfitt and Esava Ratugolea keen to stay it might have to offer only draft picks to the Giants.
Geelong is resigned to the fact injury-prone No. 10 draft pick Cockatoo will leave, and Brisbane is prepared to offer up a pick – perhaps a late second-rounder or early third-rounder.
Brisbane is aware it has now plucked Lincoln McCarthy and Cockatoo away from the Cats so will not want to insult them over a trade deal.
That Cockatoo pick will at the very least be something they can throw into a deal or use in a trade to improve other picks to hand to GWS if they are eventually forced to trade.
Shaun Higgins will replace the retiring Gary Ablett on a half forward flank but North Melbourne will not gift him to Geelong.
They are aware Higgins is a year younger than Ablett when he returned to the Cats and still at the peak of his powers.
In the Ablett trade with the Suns Geelong gave up a future second-rounder for a future fourth-rounder plus handed over pick 19 to Gold Coast in exchange for pick 24.
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Geelong coach Chris Scott admits he has dreamt of what Jeremy Cameron will do to their forward line next year and he’s buoyed by three first-round draft picks next month but says it guarantees nothing.
The Cats coach didn’t hide his disappointment on Saturday night but paid tribute to Richmond, the AFL, his players and football club after they lost the grand final by 31 points.
“If there’s a dignified way to go down then it’s to go down against the best,” Scott said.
“I can’t imagine being more disappointed, I thought the game was there but when it really counted they were just too good for us. It’s going to take a long time to get over, they always do.
“When you’re playing the best team you’ve got to take your chances … it’s a measure of a team that they were able to take those (chances) early in the third quarter and put us under pressure.”
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Geelong is set to be bolstered in the off-season by the addition of free agent key forward Jeremy Cameron from GWS and three first-round draft picks after a trade with Gold Coast and West Coast for losing Tim Kelly.
But Scott stressed it does not mean they will be back there again in 12 months’ time and fighting for a premiership.
“All I know is he’s told GWS that he’d like to leave and free agency starts on the 30th of October, I actually don’t think it’s that palatable for clubs to be talking about players they’re going to be bringing in before the formal process has seen through,” he said.
“He’s not an unrestricted free agent but clearly I have allowed myself to dream a bit about what he’d be like in our team.
“But it’s just not the right time for me to speculate because it’s going to take a lot of hard work and time with players and coaches to adjust our plan to play a bit better.
“I think it (draft) gives us a chance (to get better) but I’ve got to a stage where I don’t take anything for granted.
“I’ve said a few times how much respect I have for the competition and how even it is.
“For us to sit here and think ‘we’ll finally we’ve got a few first-round picks we should be fine’ I think would underrate the difficulty of the task.
“I’m just so respectful of how hard it is, I don’t think previous years give you an advantage or disadvantage. Maybe the experience in finals can help you a bit but we all start at zero again and we have a lot of work to do to get ourselves to the position we can even make finals.”
Patrick Dangerfield spent the majority of Saturday’s grand final as a forward with Scott resisting the temptation to put him into the midfield until very late in the game.
“The final stages of the game he did. When we were under pressure in the third quarter that was the most pivotal part of the game in terms of where we wanted to play Pat.
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“They had the ascendancy and momentum, we had him ahead of the ball and he even came off at one stage and we spoke to him and decided to leave him ahead of the ball and back that we could get that stoppage and ascendancy back, and if we could give him a bit of a chance that would be our best chance to score.
“It’s always a hard one that one, the result tends to skew your thinking a little bit more than it probably should.”
Scott said retiring great Gary Ablett Junior most likely played on with a cracked shoulder after the first quarter which he described as a “remarkable effort”, but said fellow veteran Harry Taylor had not made a call on his future at 34.
Originally published as Geelong now faces a massive off-season with the club set to be a major player during the AFL trade period
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