Press Conference

Ahead of the Cats clash with St Kilda, Chris Scott fronted the media for his weekly press conference

Scott on Ollie Dempsey’s 50th game

Look I think it has been a really good story so far, but it just feels so early that it is not going to be the most important time in his career when we look back on it.

I was just told before that he has played 43 games straight, so he has well and truly entrenched himself as a consistent AFL player.

He is one of the stories that we have enjoyed as a football club, the player that didn’t necessarily come through the traditional channels.

He was a rookie who hadn’t really played that much footy, but came into our program and prospered.

It is a nice story, but we are so early in his journey. 

Scott on the battle against St Kilda 

Do we regard it as a danger game?

I regard every game as a danger game.

24 hours before any game these days, I am the eternal pessimist thinking about all the things that we have to cover. Every team, and St Kilda are a good example, you work through their best players and their influential players, it is daunting. But I think they would feel similarly with us.

It is kind of a battle that if they get their game going, they would have confidence that they can trouble us. They have enough history to give them some confidence in that respect.

But over the course of the last couple of years I think we also feel that if we play our game that we are good enough to challenge anyone.

Is it a genuine 50-50 game? Yeah that is the way I look at it, I am very respectful of what they can do. 

Scott on the returning Cats duo

Yeah it is nice to have them back, we are really optimistic that they are ready to play well.

Obviously De Koning has missed a bit longer, but it is nice to get him back into the team. We think he is an important piece for us structurally.

Stengle has only missed a couple, he has been pretty consistent in his time here with us, but again he is an important piece.

For us to be playing well, it is likely that we need him to have an influence on the game. 

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA – JUNE 14: Sam De Koning of the Cats in action during the 2025 AFL Round 14 match between the Essendon Bombers and the Geelong Cats at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on June 14, 2025 in Melbourne, Australia. (Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos)

Scott on Toby Conway’s return to football

Yeah we are excited, but measured as well.

No-one should be watching Toby and expecting him to come in for his first game after missing so much footy, and completely dominate. He is still well and truly in the building phase of his return to play.

It is great to see him get some game time, I mean I am confident that he will do some nice things.

There will be bits that we will all be pleased to see, and even more broadly than that the combination of Mitch Edwards and Toby Conway is something that internally, we have been excited about for a long time. It is understandable that people who watch us from the outside would be excited by that as well.

There is no reason why those two can’t be a very strong combination a long way into the future. 

GEELONG, AUSTRALIA – DECEMBER 06: Toby Conway of the Cats in action during a Geelong Cats training session at Deakin University on December 06, 2024 in Geelong, Australia. (Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos)

Scott on the goal over the next six weeks

We are not thinking about six weeks time, we are aware that we are in a battle with a really high quality group of teams who are all in contention.

So we want to get our game going really well, but it is just to play as well as we can in the next game. There is some macro planning that the coaches do but to be honest, it is all pretty simple and it is not overly sophisticated stuff.

We are trying to do what the other nine, ten or eleven teams who are in contention are trying to do, which is get your game in as good a shape as possible and then hopefully, go into the the latter part of the year confident that that game is going to be good enough.

We are not in a position where we can, and we wouldn’t anyway I don’t think, but we are certainly not in a position where we can think too far ahead and try to manipulate things.Â