Geelong meets the Sydney Swans at ANZ Stadium on Saturday week and while coaches and players might only be thinking about their assignment with Melbourne on Friday, club officials have had their eye on the round 20 clash for some time.
ANZ Stadium has had its critics in recent times, with the playing surface the most recent aspect to come under fire following the Swans v Collingwood round 14 match.
While the Cats don’t expect to have to make a special trip north, Geelong football manager Neil Balme didn’t rule out someone from the club travelling to the ground should the Cats not be satisfied with feedback from an AFL inspection of the stadium in coming days.
Balme said Geelong had spoken with AFL ground operations manager Jill Lindsay “several times” in recent weeks regarding the stadium and was confident it would be given the tick of approval.
“Certainly Jill Lindsay will be doing one [an inspection] early next week,” Balme said.
“We’ll talk to her … to see what’s necessary from our point of view.
“We may or may not go and inspect it ourselves. There’s no guarantee we will. She will and we’ll talk to her and just see what sort of involvement we need.
“We’ll certainly be up there the day before the game so we’ll look at it then.”
With the Cats soon to embark on their premiership defence, and the Swans also likely to feature in the September action, neither team involved in the round 20 clash can afford injuries to any players.
Adding to Geelong’s desire to ensure there is no shifting of the surface is the fact that it is likely to welcome back key players from leg injuries in the next fortnight, with Gary Ablett (ankle) and David Wojcinski (Achilles) among chief concerns. Paul Chapman will also be due back from a hamstring complaint.
Speaking at Skilled Stadium on Wednesday, coach Mark Thompson believed there wouldn’t be an issue with the ground.
“Probably the best part about that stadium is, I think, there’s no game on it this weekend at all,” Thompson said.
“So that’s about two weeks where they can actually just work on the surface. So we’re pretty confident it’ll be okay, but we’ll certainly check.”
