GEELONG is prepared for life after Tom Lonergan and Andrew Mackie, with the next level of backmen ready to step up and take control of their backline, first-year defender Tom Stewart says.
Geelong will lose over 480 games of experience when the two veterans retire at the season's end, just 12 months after three-time premiership backman Corey Enright hung up the boots after 332 games.
But Stewart, 24, believes the back half was in good hands with the level of talent emerging from underneath.
"There's some great players in the VFL that are really developing well," Stewart said on Wednesday.
"Ryan Gardner and Timm House have showed some really good signs this year, and I think we're in pretty good stead for the next couple of years."
Mackie and Lonergan surprised the players with their announcement after Saturday night's win over Greater Western Sydney at Simonds Stadium.
Stewart said they had been quick to make sure their teammates digested their news, and looked ahead to the upcoming finals series that starts next Friday night against Richmond.
"They've been super, great people and anybody you ask who has a relationship with them will say that," he said.
"They're fantastic people and great characters of the game.
"The boys are humble champions, they didn't want to make it about themselves and they just brought us all in and just said we're on the right path now, and it's not about them, it's about the team.
"That's the task at hand, and we're looking forward to it."
Stewart said Lonergan, Mackie and Enright – now an assistant coach – had made a profound impact on him in his first year in an AFL environment.
He also said Cats' great Matthew Scarlett, who coached him at Geelong Football League club South Barwon before he was recruited to the club's VFL team, had also been significant in his journey so far.
After falling out of love with the game as a teenager, Stewart went to South Barwon to play with mates and "just have some fun".
It was there Scarlett told him he had the ability to make it at AFL level.
"It was actually after we won the flag in 2013," Stewart said.
"He came to me after he'd had a few cans and said I was wasting my time.
"I promised him I'd give it a crack.
"I'd had a fairly good year but I hadn't done anything special in the GFL, and then I had a pretty good year the following year, and then I came over to the VFL."
This time last year, Stewart was preparing for a final – albeit in the VFL – and working locally as a carpenter.
This week, he's looking ahead to next Friday's sell-out clash with the Tigers, which will be played in front of a packed 90,000-plus MCG crowd.
"It's pretty surreal circumstances, I guess," he said.
"When I hurt my head [he fractured his face in round 14 and missed three games], I did a lot of thinking about how lucky I am and how much I wanted to get back in the team.
"I suppose I'm now just focused on the task at hand."
