Geelong coach Chris Scott reviews his team’s 22-point win over the Crows at Simonds Stadium on Friday night.
On Geelong’s overall performance against Adelaide…
“We’re aware that the competition is really tight and (that) we need to keep improving to keep up with the best teams.
“We clearly rated them as the best team for the first half of the year. We knew we needed to play close to our best to have a chance and I thought close to our best was a good way to describe the performance.”
On Scott Selwood’s performance…
“It’s not just his output as an individual, we think the benefit is greater than that. He really understands the way we want to play. His organisation out there really seems to help and that’s the feedback we get from the other players. They love playing with him.
“The ability to take an opposition midfielder, but still contribute within a modern defensive system is harder than a lot of people give him credit for.”
On containing Adelaide’s forward line…
“It’s always the key against Adelaide, they’re such a heavy scoring team. It was a little bit of a concern at half-time when they’d only had 10 shots (on goal) and we’d had 19. We weren’t as accurate as we’d liked to have been.
“They are just so dangerous when they get into their forward half. When they’ve got time and space, they’ve got really good method. Then when they’re under pressure, they’re still dangerous. Put a ground ball inside the forward 50 with Betts, Cameron and even their big guys at ground level, they’re hard to contain.”
On curbing Rory Sloane’s influence…
“I thought that was a really important matchup for us. That’s clear across the competition, everyone understands what a great player he is. It’s a challenge, as in our view he tends to play his best when he’s allowed to go to the opposition's best midfielder. He does that job defensively pretty well, but he can really get away from you offensively as well. Our focus was more on making sure that he didn’t hurt us the other way, rather than break any defensive move he was making.”
On Tom Hawkins and the Match Review Panel…
“We’ve had a look at (the incident). I think it will be bigger than it should be, or would have been if there wasn’t the focus on it at the moment. We are believers that they (the MRP) should be consistent with those sorts of things. Obviously with Tom, the footage will go back to the Phil Davis incident and we think it’s different to that. This one’s more a push than anything. (We’re) not sure if they’ll share our view, but we’ll work through that process."
