Geelong coach Chris Scott admits defender Lawson Humphries “hasn’t done a whole lot post-game” after suffering an ankle injury in last Friday’s loss to Carlton.
Humphries managed to return to action after coming from the ground, and finished with 21 disposals, but he is not a certainty to be on the plane to Adelaide tomorrow for Thursday night’s clash with the Crows.
Scott says medical staff “were pretty optimistic” after the match that the 23-year-old hadn’t sustained any serious damage, with the club’s injury report due to be released this (Tuesday) afternoon.
“I think I’ve said this before, and I’m more happy to explain this publicly than I have been in the past, but for a long time we’ve taken an attitude that we would like to shift the idea that it’s possible players play; ‘so, can they play?’, to more of a conversation around ‘should they play?’,” he said.
“And again, when you think about that in the context of the way sometimes we proactively manage players who don’t have any glaring kind of acute injury issue, then playing guys when they’re less than their best sounds a bit counter to what we’re trying to put in place.
“All that to say, that’s more than I wanted to say, but it puts a bit of doubt on Lawson.
“But it shouldn’t be construed as he couldn’t play. If we choose not to play him, it’s likely that, yeah, he could have, but we chose to prioritise optimisation.”
Dynamic forward Jack Martin will return after being managed out of the defeat by the Blues, while several players who have performed strongly at VFL level in recent weeks will come under consideration.
Jack Bowes has averaged 36 disposals in the past three matches, while George Stevens starred with 41 disposals as the Cats reached the halfway mark of the VFL season on top of the ladder with an 8-1 win-loss record following a 50-point win over Carlton.
Scott says the five-day turnaround between the VFL and AFL won’t impact
“We can control the amount of game time that those guys have at VFL level,” he said.
“At the end of the day, the difference between 12 o’clock on a Saturday and 7:40 (pm) on a Friday is not that great.”
X: @krockfootball
