Mark Robinson: A 2024 premiership would top 2011, 2022 triumphs for Chris Scott

Chris Scott has astonished even his closest admirers with another top-four finish. Insiders and opponents tell MARK ROBINSON what makes the Cats coach a modern great.

Already, 2024 has been a coaching masterclass from Chris Scott, and if Geelong wins the premiership, it would be the pinnacle achievement of his career.

Forty-odd games since winning the 2022 premiership, a reshaped coaching staff and reinvigorated playing list has the Cats challenging again.

Even the most eager Scott admirers are astonished with yet another top-four finish.

And with this list? It’s probably being disrespectful, but this group is quality, but is hardly being worshipped as potentially great.

Recruiting and development are key planks at Geelong, clearly.

But at the helm is the calm, confident and competitive Scott who, at 48, probably has an aura around him more than any other coach. It’s a truism that to beat Geelong you have to best the scoreboard and best the coaching box.

It’s because Scott continues to be tactically razor-sharp and his team plays consistent, elite and methodical football.

This season, Scott started 7-0 and then lost six of the next seven games and came home 7-2.

Along the way he’s evolved, regrouped and ultimately scrambled into his 10th top-four finish in 14 years.

Chris Scott has reinvented the Cats in 2024. Picture: Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images

It’s been inventive and probing coaching, and perhaps it was through necessity, but what’s come out the other end is a team gunning for preliminary final weekend.

“He’s coaching as well as he ever has,” Geelong boss Steve Hocking said.

“The consistent thing I’ve observed this year is his ability to continue to develop and learn and stay open to new thinking and new ways.”

That was propelled by the addition this season of new assistant coaches Steven King and James Rahilly, and long-time lieutenant Nigel Lappin joined the development program.

“The coaching group has been outstanding,” Hocking said. “Those coaches who came in have had a real impact on Chris in a real positive way.

“It’s great when you’re working alongside someone as closely as what I do, and others do, and you continually see that openness to learning and being agile in your thinking.

“We finished third, which is quite incredible.”

St Kilda coach Ross Lyon is a fan of Scott. When Lyon sometimes dawdles in his press conferences, he often says Scott is the best coach in the competition.

Asked this week to expand, he said: “It’s not a short answer.”

Give it a whirl?

“It’s his record, his consistency,” Lyon said.

“If you look at him when he was young, what he took over, that was great and then he changed it, picked it up and perpetuated it.

“(Then) to reinvent and to recruit, adapt and stay calm and take all the criticism when people were coming after him for a long time – I just think on pure performance and longevity, I just like the way he goes about it.

“He tailors his team to what he’s got. He just doesn’t say, ‘Get me a running half-back’ and, ‘Get me this and that’, he works with what he’s got.

“I think it’s an all-club performance, the ability to recruit (Jeremy) Cameron and (Patrick) Dangerfield, but his ability to utilise them, and adapt.

“He’s very astute – I’ve coached against him a number of times. I think he’s been incredible.”

Sam De Koning was tried in the ruck this season. Picture: Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images

Lyon said coaching box versus coaching box on match-day was rigorous.

“When you coach against him, they throw a lot at you,’’ he said.

Scott has been inventive this season, or has been forced to be. The signature move was champion defender Tom Stewart into the midfield. At other times, he’s played Tom Atkins at half-back, as a tagger and now back as an inside mid.

Ollie Dempsey went to the wing. Defender Sam De Koning became a ruckman. Zach Tuohy spent time at half-back, so did Mitch Duncan. Max Holmes, who will win the Cats’ best-and-fairest, has played half-back and midfield. Jack Bowes is a fully fledged mid. Lawson Humphries was introduced in defence and Shaun Mannagh in attack. And Shannon Neale looks like keeping Tom Hawkins on the sidelines.

It’s certainly true that after consecutive beatings from Sydney and Carlton either side of the bye – the latter on a Friday night at the MCG in front of 75,000 fans – the Cats doubters lined up.

Never again to be underestimated, the next week, they pumped Essendon.

“They got traction in the midfield,’’ Lyon said. “They shifted Stewart; Holmes is a really good player. Dangerfield. Their ability to recalibrate their midfield and get traction was strong.

“(Scott) uses Dempsey to his strength – a wing who pushes forward. The ability to use Mannagh … he just does a lot right and they have a game style that challenges you.’’

He agreed that Scott and his team were calm and organised.

“They are disciplined and they know (their) roles,’’ Lyon said.

“How they play is pretty clear, they are not stuck in between styles.”

In the past 50 years, there are only five coaches who have won premierships with distinctly different playing groups. They are David Parkin (Hawthorn-Carlton), Mick Malthouse (West Coast-Collingwood), Leigh Matthews (Collingwood-Brisbane) and Kevin Sheedy (Essendon).

That group is coaching royalty. The fifth coach is Chris Scott.

Parkin won flags at two different clubs in five years, which is why he is a Hall of Famer, and then another with Carlton 13 years later, while Sheedy coached three generations – 1984-85, 1993 and 2000. Scott was 2011 and 2022.

Only three players in the Cats’ 2011 team played in the ’22 flag – Joel Selwood, Tom Hawkins and Mitch Duncan (sub).

In a significant overhaul, eight players from the 2022 premiership team won’t play against Port Adelaide on Thursday.

They are Selwood, Hawkins, Isaac Smith, Cam Guthrie, Mark O’Connor and Brandan Parfitt. Gary Rohan and De Koning are emergencies.

Their replacements are Holmes, Humphries, Dempsey, Neale, Mannagh, Bowes, Ollie Henry and Tanner Bruhn.

Three of those players (Bowes, Henry and Bruhn) were traded in from other clubs. Holmes was pick 20, Mannagh was 36, Humphries 63, Neale 33 and Dempsey was pick 15 in a rookie draft.

A former Cats insider, who did not want to be named, highlighted the rookie-list players, late draft picks and fringe players who have become key contributors under Scott.

“People line up to play for Chris – they want to come to Geelong,” he said.

He said Scott “ticks all the boxes” in regards to relationships and leadership.

“Have you ever heard him not defending his player publicly?” he said.

“Behind closed doors, he will have the conversation, but he would never humiliate or demean. He never does. It doesn’t mean you get a free pass.

“Another thing is, he tells players, ‘We’re here to work for you, you don’t work for us’. That’s the underlying philosophy why, in part, he is so successful. He understands leadership is not imposing down on people, it’s lifting them up and making them better.’’

A third premiership this season would be Chris Scott’s greatest achievement. Picture: Martin Keep/AFL Photos/via Getty Images

The former insider noted Scott’s demeanour after the Blues belting.

In what was an anticipated house-is-burning-down type post-match press conference, Scott was composed, praiseworthy of the opposition and was adamant that, having not rebuilt for 14 years, the Cats weren't going to start now.

“He remained really positive,” the former insider said. “What he does is not react to appease others. Sometimes, you have to be seen to act to satisfy other people’s panic. He doesn’t do that. He stays the course. He has a clear direction of what’s good, what’s still working and what needs to be fixed.

“That’s hard to do. Ego and emotion always get involved in elite sport, but he takes both of them out. It’s not, ‘I have to fix everything’, he lets people do their jobs. And the emotion of ‘We’ve lost a few games we need to change everything’ also doesn’t exist.’’

The press conference leading into the next match against Essendon also was without urgency. In fact, most of it centred on the debut of Humphries. Three changes were made to the team, two forced by injuries to Hawkins and Ollie Henry. They smashed the Bombers by 45 points, which ignited the 7-2 run.

‘‘He’s so positive when other people think it’s going to shit,’’ the former insider said.

“He gets better and better every year.”

Originally published as Mark Robinson: A 2024 premiership would top 2011, 2022 triumphs for Chris Scott