GEELONG chief executive Brian Cook says there will be no knee-jerk reactions in the wake of the Cats’ shock loss to Hawthorn in Saturday’s AFL grand final.
Geelong went into the premiership decider a warm favourite but couldn’t capitalise on its chances, with the Hawks kicking clear in the second half to win by 26 points.
Cook admitted the grand final loss was a hiccup in the Cats’ plans to become the AFL power he has often talked of, but the message from the CEO and club president Frank Costa on Sunday was clear – Geelong will be back next year.
“We’re heading in the right direction and this is a blip, a major blip on our plan,” Cook said at Skilled Stadium.
“But we’ll come back. There’s no issue there; we’ll definitely come back next year.”
Cook said his ambition to have the Cats make the transition from a good to a “great club” was not yet complete.
“We’ve still got to have sustained success; we haven’t had that yet,” he said.
“The next five years, I think, will determine whether we become a great club – whether we continue to play in grand finals and win premierships and have a bigger stadium, television ratings, radio ratings, whatever it might be.”
How the Cats maintain their outstanding on-field record, or even continue to improve, will be monitored over the summer, but Cook believes little tinkering to the club’s playing or coaching roster is needed.
He said he didn’t expect the club’s football department to be “overly active” during AFL trade week, while more than 50 of the club’s key footy personnel – including coaches and players – were all contracted for next season.
“That doesn’t mean you stay exactly the same and let other people pass you by. You’ve just got to make sure that you do everything at 100 per cent, and you thoroughly review your systems and come up with a better plan and better ways of winning.”
While the Cats’ last on-field effort was one most supporters would prefer to forget, Cook reported that off the field, the club was in good shape.
A win against the Hawks on Saturday would have further strengthened the club’s bottom line, but Geelong is a far cry from the debt-ridden club it was when the trio of Cook, Costa and coach Mark Thompson came together.
“We’ll make probably about a $1.3, $1.4 million profit [this year],” Cook said.
“Had we have won yesterday it’d be about $2.5 million which is a bit of an issue, but that’s all right. And that’s our ninth consecutive profit, and we’ve got net assets now of about $10 million, which is fantastic.”
Cook said the Cats, which had around 37,000 members this year, would aim for 40,000 members in coming seasons.
