GEELONG assistant coach Brendan McCartney has played down a stoush between star players Cameron Ling and Steve Johnson in today’s intra-club match at Skilled Stadium.

The pair engaged in a prolonged push and shove late in the 80-minute hit-out and senior Cat Brad Ottens had to cool down proceedings.

But McCartney said the incident merely showed the Cats players relished the contest.

“Our boys are competitive,” McCartney said.

“That’s not such a bad thing. You don’t want seven- and eight-year-olds doing that, but they are a competitive bunch of players.”

McCartney said he expected Geelong’s fringe players to put pressure on the established stars in coming weeks.

“A lot of them have had a real spring in their step in pre-season and we’d like to give them chances in the early part of the season and hope they take it,” he said.

“What they have done is identify things they want to get better at, which will only make them better players and make us a better club, which is what we are all about.”

McCartney said it was too early to tell which of the senior players absent today would return for next Saturday’s opening NAB Cup clash against Melbourne.

But he said the Cat hierarchy was happy with the standard of yesterday’s clash.

“I think [coach] Mark [Thompson] hit it on the head when he said they had all come back fit and well and were able to absorb more work than at that time last year, which gives you a pretty good guide.

“I think they are also mature enough to speak to each other like men and request that each other train and play like professional athletes.”

McCartney said full-forward hopeful Tom Lonergan had been outstanding in pre-season and was likely to get his chances after a solid game today.

“No one more than us hopes that he gets the chance to come back and play league footy because he really deserves it,” he said.

“But we want him to earn that too and be a good contributor too.”