Geelong was hammered by Coburg in last weekend’s season opener to the tune of 75 points, the result a rude shock for the reigning premiers of the VFL.
But Tudor, in his fourth year as coach of the reserves side, said while the magnitude of the loss was disappointing he knew it would take time for his side to find its feet.
"The boys have been a little bit embarrassed about that," he said of the loss.
"It’s going to be a real teaching year for a lot of those guys.
"We’re lucky enough that we’re still going to have some real quality players in the side from time to time, like the Prismalls and the Lonergans who are there at the moment, who can teach our boys as well.
"The senior guys who drop down are going to have a pretty big role as well as teachers this year because we are so young, and when you have a young side you’re generally up and down a bit."
Tudor noted Geelong’s VFL side had to rebuild each year, with a certain number of players departing as a result of the Cats reshaping their AFL list.
"There’s always four or five new guys – we’ve got nine this year – and we always have a full list of rookies," he said.
"At the weekend there was only six guys playing who played in last year’s VFL grand final, so we were a totally different side.
"Even with the VFL list as well, which is a separate list, we’ve got some new players on there as well which we need to teach how we want them to play, so the quicker we can do that, the better it’s going to be for all of us."
Tudor said he expected the VFL competition to again be very competitive and believes Coburg, Williamstown, Sandringham, Casey and Collingwood will be among the teams to beat.
