"They had the wood over us probably a while back, but our team in a lot of ways is probably a little bit more settled than theirs is," Scott said on Tuesday.

 

"Which seems strange, but it's testament to what they've been able to do.

 

"They've been able to transition their list and still remain ultra competitive, so this year is a very different season to last and both teams are a little bit different.

Round 19, 2013: Watch the highlights of the Roos-Cats thriller

 

"So it will be a new chapter in our rivalry."

 

Scott is right. His comments do seem strange.

 

But he is also right that the Cats' list has undergone a transition.

 

The Cats used just 31 players in their 2007, 2009 and 2011 premierships, with 12 players playing in all three flags and another 11 playing in two.

 

However, since winning the 2011 flag in Chris Scott's first year as coach, they have said goodbye to 13 of those premiership players, including club greats Cameron Ling, Darren Milburn, Brad Ottens, Matthew Scarlett, Paul Chapman and Joel Corey.

 

In the same time, the only player approaching A-grade status that North has lost is run-with midfielder Brady Rawlings.

 

Just as the core of Geelong's premiership teams was built via the draft from the late 1990s, North has invested heavily in youth since 2006.

 

The players the Roos have drafted since then – most notably Lachlan Hansen, Lindsay Thomas, Scott Thompson, Jack Ziebell, Ben Cunnington, Ryan Bastinac, Aaron Black and Shaun Atley – have formed a stable nucleus, slotting in alongside senior players Brent Harvey, Drew Petrie, Daniel Wells and Andrew Swallow.

 

Brad Scott has invested a lot of time and patience into these players, and many predicted at the start of this season that 2014 would be the year that they started to repay his faith, possibly with a top-four finish.

 

Friday night's game will provide more evidence on whether the Roos are the top-four contenders they looked in beating Port Adelaide, the Sydney Swans at the SCG and Fremantle at Patersons Stadium, or the pretenders they looked when flogged by Essendon, Collingwood and Gold Coast.

 

It will also be keenly watched by those who are predicting the demise of the Cats might finally be nigh.

 

The Cats silenced the doomsayers with their 5-0 start to the season, but they have found their voice again in the wake of Geelong's losses to Port Adelaide and Fremantle in the past three weeks.

 

But let's not let both teams' long-term prospects distract us from what is a fascinating clash on Friday night.

 

Here are some of the issues that will determine which twin Scott brother claims family bragging rights:

 

Both teams are coming off a six-day break, but the Cats are also coming off a trip to Patersons Stadium. Just two teams have won this year the week after travelling to Perth: Gold Coast in round three and Port Adelaide in round six. Will the Cats be the third or will they be as listless as Essendon and North were the week after their Perth encounters?

Brad Scott said this week playing the Cats at their home ground is one of the most daunting challenges in football. It's hard to argue when you consider Geelong has not lost to a Victorian team at Simonds Stadium since round five, 2007 – when ironically North pulled off a huge upset win – and has won 51 of its 54 games there since. To make the Roos' task even harder, they have not played a premiership game at Simonds Stadium for three years.

 

After averaging 102.4 points a game in the first five rounds, Geelong has averaged just 70.6 points in its past three matches. Chris Scott said during the week the Cats' attack had been hurt by the absences of Nathan Vardy, Shane Kersten and Mitch Brown, who were all earmarked as possible successors to James Podsiadly. The Cats coach also cautioned people not to expect too much too soon from Steven Motlop, who returned from a knee injury in round seven. "Our program is designed around having him at his absolute best later in the year, so we should lower our expectations when it comes to Steve," he said.

Earlier this week, the Roos had yet to finalise their plans for the Cats captain, but Brad Scott suggested playing a hard tag on Selwood was futile. "You need to get someone on him who can compete for the footy because just trying to stop him is not good enough because you just end up following him around all day," he said. Levi Greenwood is our bet for one of the game's biggest jobs.

 

Cats ruckman Hamish McIntosh admits it will be weird to go up against his former understudy Todd Goldstein in his first premiership match against North. The former Roo is expecting some friendly stick from his mates at Arden Street, while Brad Scott says he is just hoping that the Roos' decision to grant McIntosh a trade at the end of 2012 does not come back to bite them.

 

As much as Brad Scott disagreed with Steve Johnson's suspension from Friday night's clash for his "innocuous" head clash with Fremantle's Ryan Crowley, the Roos coach was not complaining that the star midfielder would be missing. The Roos have been without one of their star midfielders, Daniel Wells (foot), since round five and he will be sorely missed against the Cats. Although not as consistent as Johnson, Wells was one of the Roos' match-winners in their two recent wins against the Cats, kicking four goals in round 19 last year and racking up 31 possessions in round three, 2012.

 

When Chris Scott was asked during the week whether he would shout brother Brad a beer after Friday night's game, his answer suggested he might be one of those characters best avoided at the pub – a fair-weather shouter. "If we win, I'll offer him a beer," he joked.