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Sport
Roger Vaughan

Chris Scott was right - brother Brad has improved Dons

Chris Scott will lead the Cats against his twin brother Brad's Bombers in Geelong. (Julian Smith/AAP PHOTOS) (AAP)

Chris Scott once famously said he would not like to see his twin brother Brad return as an AFL coach, claiming the job was not a very good one.

There was another reason, which has been proved repeatedly this season - it's a role Brad, like Chris, is very good at.

Chris's Geelong will host Brad's Essendon on Saturday night at GMHBA Stadium in a blockbuster clash with major top-eight ramifications.

Brad, who has also coached North Melbourne, has transformed the Bombers since taking over late last year. They lie fifth, while the eighth-placed Cats are growing in confidence.

Geelong will start favourites, mainly because of their significant home-ground advantage but also thanks to the significant boost of the return of key forward Jeremy Cameron from concussion.

But the Cats coach is under no illusions about the challenge presented by Essendon.

"One of the downsides of (Brad) coming back was I was pretty confident he'd improve the club he went to," Chris Scott said on Friday.

"That's the part on my mind this week, rather than the novelty of it all.

"It's multi-faceted - they've just become a team, to our observation, that have different ways of beating you and they're always the hardest teams to play against.

"Fundamentally they're sound and it's not a matter of us exploiting any obvious weaknesses, we just have to play our game as well as we possibly can and back that it's going to be enough."

The Cats beat the Bombers by 28 points at the MCG in round seven.

Chris, like his twin, was not keen to discuss the siblings coaching against each other again - but he understands the interest.

"Honestly, there's not excitement," he said.

"But I've learned over the years - and we had to learn this pretty quickly as kids ... we got to the stage pretty quickly where it never really bothered us too much.

"It took me a while to move past the fact that it didn't bother me, to understand it is a novelty for other people.

"You get asked all the time, 'What's it like to be a twin?'. My brother always says, 'What's it like not to be?'."

Geelong have been able to rest Zach Tuohy and Esava Ratugolea this week, with the reigning premiers keeping one eye on the finals.

Small forward Gryan Miers will play his 100th game and has also signed a new contract with the club.

"I probably shouldn't pause for too long on the 100th game, because I get the sense it's a milestone along the way that will be thought about less when he passes 150, 200, 250 - he's that good," Scott said.

In more good news for the Cats, they have reached 80,000 members.

"I can still vividly remember 'little Geelong has 40,000 members - what an amazing achievement that is, with a capacity of 20-odd thousand at the ground'," Scott said.

"We are quite rightly as a club proud of being a national brand."

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