Geelong coach Chris Scott concedes the Cats have "some problems" amid a three-game AFL losing streak, but is adamant they can arrest their sudden slide.
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The Cats (7-3), who won their first seven games of the season, suffered a 26.8 (164) to 15.10 (100) thumping from Gold Coast in Darwin, where they were smashed around the ground on Thursday night.
It followed earlier defeats to Melbourne and Port Adelaide, with Scott conceding Geelong needed to "galvanise" their players before hosting hard-nosed GWS next Saturday.
"It's not as if we have a history of playing this poorly, consistently," Scott said.
"So we always tend to look on the bright side and try to find the positives,
"But we're not playing well, we've got to try to galvanise the group and we've got a longer break leading into another good team in GWS.
"We can arrest things. I've got no doubt about that.
"You're always concerned but it's a balance between not glossing over it - and we're clearly not going to do that - but we're also not going to overreact.
"So that's the challenge: trying to find that reality. And hopefully that's in the middle somewhere, but it's clear that we're off and we've got some problems that we need to fix."
Geelong's decision to manage three experienced players came under the spotlight as the Cats were well beaten around the ground.
Despite losing Jeremy Cameron to concussion, the Cats still opted to manage fellow key forward Tom Hawkins, while fellow veterans Mitch Duncan and Rhys Stanley were also rested.
"We certainly need to analyse it and we've known for a long, long time it's one of those things that when we win, we feel really good about it and when you lose, you go and analyse everything," Scott said.
"(Sam) De Koning came out late with a tight hamstring as well, there's always a little bit more to it than just voluntarily leaving guys out that are in tip-top shape
"But it's certainly something that we need to assess. It's probably in that category of we shouldn't just shake it off - we've got to think through how we build.
"Maybe there is an element of not quite having the cohesion that we'd like at the moment. But again, not something that we're gonna make snap decisions on or give opinions on right now."
Cam Guthrie was substituted out in the third quarter and Scott said he too had been managed.
Australian Associated Press
