RECOVERY has been the theme at Geelong as it prepares to tackle the in-form North Melbourne at Skilled Stadium on Sunday.
A number of players pulled up sore in the wake of last week’s win over the Sydney Swans at ANZ Stadium and later criticised the surface for being too hard.
Cat forward Mathew Stokes said he feared injury during the match and said it was like “playing in the desert”.
The comments came after the previous AFL fixture at the heavily used venue, the round 14 clash between the Swans and Collingwood, was marred by turf coming free in tufts and preventing players gaining adequate footing.
A league spokesman said prior to Saturday night's clash that the AFL had "no issue" with the surface this time around.
"Last time (Collingwood v Swans) the surface wasn't up to the standard that we'd hoped, but we're satisfied now and have no issue with it," he said.
But Thompson said the ramifications of last week’s win at the AFL's second biggest venue forced the side to alter its recovery program.
“We were pretty lucky we got an eight-day recovery,” he said.
“Like we do every week we monitor the guys and adjust, but we’ve probably done about 30 or 40 per cent more recovery work this week to recover from that hard surface last week.”
Thompson said Paul Chapman, Matthew Scarlett and Darren Milburn will return on Sunday, but said the final make-up of the side was yet to be finalised.
“We’ve got a few blokes still doubtful and we haven’t crunched our team yet,” he said.
The Cat coach rated Sunday’s game as ideal for his side to fine-tune its finals preparations against a hard-nosed team which, like the Cats, thrives on contested footy.
He praised his players' ability to rise to a challenge and said it was all hands on deck with finals only two weeks away.
“The players have been fantastic for a long while now,” he said.
“It’s been a road where they just get on with business and we certainly do a lot to try and help then through their week, but they’ve been exceptional in taking the work and preparing themselves.”
