Small forward Brad Close will play VFL for the first time in his seven-season stint at Geelong on Friday night.
Cats coach Chris Scott confirmed the 27-year-old, who has played 129 games since debuting in the middle of 2020, including the past 53 consecutively, would join captain Patrick Dangerfield in missing tomorrow (Thursday) night’s meeting with Adelaide.
Close had eight disposals (two kicks) in the Opening Round loss to Gold Coast, followed by four disposals in the victory over Fremantle.
He laid only two tackles across those two matches, and he failed to kick a goal.
“We don’t think he’s had an optimal sort of preparation to this point, and we’d like to make the most of these long breaks between games to get some more training in,” Scott said.
“He’ll get a little bit of VFL game time as well – unlikely that it would be full game time.
“But we think we can put a program together for him to get him back to his best pretty quickly, physically, and have him available for the Hawthorn game.
“It’s quite a proactive move in our opinion.”
Geelong confirmed on Tuesday that Dangerfield won’t play against his former club due to an ongoing calf issue that has plagued him since representing Victoria in the State of Origin clash against Western Australia in mid-February.
“The biggest issue at the moment is that he just hasn’t had any continuity of training,” Scott said.
“And as much as anything, he’s the one kind of driving the fact that he feels like he needs a block of training to be really confident to play the way that he knows that he can.
“Even if you extend it back a little bit, he played Origin and was a bit restricted coming off that as well.
“And it just got to the point where… even the very best players need to train with some continuity to be able to play their best.
“We’ve had a pretty strong history, I think, and consistent history, with our approach with him in particular, when he’s not in that mode where he can really perform at his best, we tend to be a bit conservative.”
The absence of Dangerfield and the omission of Close mean Geelong will make at least two changes for the meeting with the Crows, who last won at GMHBA Stadium in 2003.
Forward duo Ollie Henry and Oli Wiltshire, and midfielder Mitch Knevitt will vie for the vacant spots in the team, which will be released at 6:20 pm tonight.
Former Hawk James Worpel, who missed the win over the Dockers, is hoping to prove he has overcome an infected finger.
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