28/09/2008 4:30 PM
Geelong will not be an active player during the upcoming trade period despite its Grand Final failure, club chief executive Brian Cook said on Sunday.
There has been speculation that fringe players such as David Wojcinski and Brent Prismall would be leaving Skilled Stadium in search for more opportunities elsewhere.
But Cook said the club was happy with the list which had taken it to 42 wins from its past 45 matches.
Instead, the Cats will concentrate on developing its youngsters and was likely to appoint a fifth assistant coach to help them improve their depth.
The Cats have already spoken with recently retired Collingwood captain Scott Burns, who Cook said had a 'very, very impressive' interview, but would approach more candidates now that their season was over.
Cook said the club wanted to get a 'bigger bang' for its buck and fast-track the development of its youngsters ahead of the arrival of new clubs Gold Coast and West Sydney in the coming years.
"If you cut deep are you actually getting better people in the draft in the future years which may not be as good as the people you've got" Cook said.
"And so I think there's got to be a heavy emphasis now, particularly at our club on the development area of our kids, our bottom 15 players."
"We'll just have to keep our kids on longer on lists and look at if we can develop them over time."
"So when you say will you make a lot of changes to your list probably not, no. And I don't see the footy people doing that."
Off the field, Cook predicted the club would make a $1.3 million profit this season but revealed that could have been nearly doubled had the Cats won on Saturday.
"That's our ninth consecutive profit and we have net assets of about $10m which is fantastic," he said.
Cook said he expected the club's membership growth to plateau over the next year or two as the capacity at Skilled Stadium would drop to 24,000 in 2009 due to redevelopment works. But it would rise up to 30,000 once they were completed by 2010.
"Our membership figures over the next year or two might be a little bit static," he said.
"We'll aim for about 40,000 eventually."