Geelong coach Chris Scott spoke to the media post game.
Great result for your club and you must have been particularly happy with the weight of numbers and the even spread of contributors you had through the night?
Yes, especially with some disruption in the lead up to the game with. We thought we came away from round one with good availability and then the week went on and we lost player after player for one reason or another. It’s always hard when you have to shuffle always hard when you have to shuffle a little bit. It wasn’t as simple as a little bit. It wasn’t as simple as a midfielder has gone out, so we bring in another midfielder. It was a credit to the players ability to adjust to some late strategic changes. When I say late, it was an hour before the game for some of them. Even the way the game was played, we had a suspicion Adelaide might be looking to move the ball fast from their back half but there was some adjustment required there. I thought the execution, and I expected that from our experienced players, but I was really pleased with some of our younger players the way they adapted to what we were asking. I think Shaun Mannagh, Oliver Dempsey, those sorts of guys.
Mitch Duncan, was withdrawn for family reasons, did he come over?
Yes, he jumped on the plane at about 4:30pm.
Tom Atkins?
He was here and pulled out of the game an hour before, had an adductor issue that came up. We were confident he would play which was obviously why we brought in. We were at the same with Tanner Bruhn. He didn’t get through, he had a truncated training session yesterday. That was an easy call. But we thought Atkins would get through the warmup and he didn’t.
Having said you had even contributors there were a couple of standouts, Tom Stewart again. Do you marvel at what he can do and why is he such or so hard for opposition coaches to counter?
If I told you that I would be telling them as well. I have been in that situation plenty of times where you are acutely aware of how good an opposition player is, you know exactly what he does, you plan for him and he is just too good. That was my assessment tonight. It was a milestone and hard to believe with what he has given our club that is only played 150 games. It might be up there with the best 150 games ever played, I’m biased obviously. The way he plays was just special. But I wouldn’t be too hard on anyone who gets the planning a little bit off against him because he is hard to stop. But I’m not giving any
The other Tom, Tom Hawkins, next weekend, plays 350 games. That third quarter he swung the game back your way with three goals?
Yes, especially we were kicking with the breeze in the third quarter and they kicked the first two of the quarter, really quickly, and look like they had some momentum. That is we rely more on your leaders on the ground rather than anything from the coach’s box. Tom is good for us and he finished nicely and was able to steady us. He was certainly influential down there.
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