Cats wary of Saints’ Marvel-lous venue form

Chris Scott is far more interested in the St Kilda of round 24 last AFL season, compared to the opposition whose season started so poorly last weekend.

The Geelong coach is wary heading into Saturday night’s match against the Saints at Marvel Stadium and says his team must heed the lessons from their last meeting.

While the Cats will start hot favourites, St Kilda upset them last year at the same venue by 18 points.

Indeed, the Saints have beaten Geelong in their past three matches at Docklands.

“St Kilda would be rightly confident they have a method at Marvel that has worked at least in patches against us, so that’s our challenge,” Scott said on Friday.

“It’s good to acknowledge that, because one of the greatest mistakes you can make in footy is look at a game seven days ago and assume you’re going to get something similar the next week.

“We disregard that to an extent and focus a little bit more on what they have been able to do to us.

“If that makes them feel a little bit more confident, that’s probably justified and if it steels us a little bit more, that’s justified too.”

Just as Geelong tries to ride a strong home-ground advantage at GMHBA Stadium, Scott noted the Saints played at Marvel Stadium 13 times this season.

He also pointed out Geelong had not played at Docklands last season before the St Kilda loss, and added the ball “pings” around more at the roofed stadium.

Scott said Geelong preferred to play at Marvel earlier in the season – not coming out of a Melbourne winter with wetter outdoor grounds.

“We didn’t adjust well enough,” he said of the round-24 loss.

“Last week was 30-odd degrees and a hard, fast deck, the game was played a little bit like it would be played under the roof at Marvel.”

Scott said the Saints looked “a little bit off” in round one, something of an understatement given Adelaide mauled them by 10 goals.

His team are coming off a 78-point belting of Fremantle at home that underpinned the Cats’ ongoing status as a top-four side.

Given Bailey Smith’s red-hot Geelong debut, Scott is not surprised rival coach Ross Lyon said on Thursday the Saints would put work into the star midfielder.

“It would make sense,” Scott said. “Bailey had a good start.

“My read on the Saints is they’re always thoughtful around the opposition playmakers and the guys who make a difference.

“I assume if he was asked about (Tom) Stewart, (Patrick) Dangerfield or (Max) Holmes or whoever, he would have said a similar thing.”

Also on Friday, the Cats announced young ruckman Toby Conway had re-signed for two years.

By Roger Vaughan AAP