{"id":388483,"date":"2024-04-27T00:21:03","date_gmt":"2024-04-27T00:21:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=388483"},"modified":"2024-04-27T05:05:25","modified_gmt":"2024-04-27T05:05:25","slug":"why-scott-believed-cat-had-already-surpassed-milestone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=388483","title":{"rendered":"Why Scott believed Cat had already surpassed milestone"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ask Geelong<\/a> coach Chris Scott<\/a> \ufeffwhat milestone he believed key defender Sam De Koning was notching up against Carlton in round seven and he would have given you the completely wrong answer.<\/p>\n

De Koning is playing game 50 on Saturday afternoon, but Scott feels like the 23-year-old has been part of the hoops for a lot longer than that.<\/p>\n

Taken with pick 119 in the 2019 draft, De Koning honed his craft around the ground before earning a permanent spot in 2022 as a key defender.<\/p>\n

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He would go on to play a crucial role in Geelong's 2022 premiership win over Sydney by 81 points after a breakout year on the park.\ufeff<\/p>\n

De Koning has become so vital that Scott felt like this was an even larger milestone than it really is.\ufeff<\/p>\n

\"Sam<\/p>\n

"When someone said he had a milestone, I was hedging more towards (it being) 100 (games) than 50," Scott told reporters on Friday.<\/p>\n

"I really think of Sam being a mainstay of our team and it sort of took me by surprise."<\/p>\n

De Koning's Cats have had a much better start to their 2024 campaign\ufeff compared to their 0-3 kick off last season.<\/p>\n

Scott believes their positive start has instilled a confident in the young defender that he lost in 2023.\ufeff<\/p>\n

https:\/\/twitter.com\/GeelongCats\/status\/1783420695025742311<\/a><\/p>\n

But, the two-time premiership coach has always rated De Koning highly.\ufeff<\/p>\n

"He's a very young player, there's a lot of footy in front of him, but he's already crucial to us," Scott said.<\/p>\n

Now he's set to play his 50th game against brother Tom De Koning, who has come into his own as Carlton's ruckman and another tall taregt in their already dangerous forwardline.\ufeff<\/p>\n

"There's no better stage (for De Koning's 50th)," Scott said.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

But Scott remained coy on how his young defender is feeling about facing his brother in this important milestone.\ufeff<\/p>\n

"I don't know how he feels about playing against his brother. I don't bring it up with him," he said.<\/p>\n

"But more important is you get to play in front of a virtually sold-out MCG on a Saturday afternoon.<\/p>\n

"It's pretty cool."<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ask Geelong coach Chris Scott \ufeffwhat milestone he believed key defender Sam De Koning was notching up against Carlton in round seven and he would […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":388485,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388483"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=388483"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388483\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":388488,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/388483\/revisions\/388488"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/388485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=388483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=388483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=388483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}