GEELONG'S patchy performance in Friday night's nine-point win over Essendon gave its doubters yet more evidence that the Cats will struggle to do any damage in the finals.
 
However, coach Chris Scott saw enough to keep the belief that anything is possible.
"The facts are we haven't been great over the last four to six weeks, and I reckon there's some people lining up to call the end, which is okay," Scott said after the victory. 
"I've been dealing with it for four years.
"I'm not going speculate as to where we are in the season or what's going to come except to say we're excited and we're up for it. 
"Are we good enough? Who knows?" 
Scott's men led the Bombers by five goals midway through the second quarter, went to sleep in a goalless third term, then came to life in the last half-hour to record their 10th win of the season.
"The one thing I know about our guys is they don't give up," Scott said. 
"The momentum can turn a little bit against them, and there are some things we need to fix when that happens, but I was pretty confident at three-quarter time. 
"I knew we didn't have any players that would throw in the towel.
"I don't think there are too many people on our bandwagon at the moment, and we're not going to be the ones to pump ourselves up. 
"We’re going okay, but I think it's fair to say that we're in the group of teams who are just below the best."
Scott was full of praise for his skipper Joel Selwood, who appeared to be troubled by a hamstring problem but still managed to kick two goals and rack up 26 disposals.
"He got a cork," Scott said. "He's been a tad sore at times in the past month, but he got a knock early in the game, which is never easy. 
"He had to push through, but he was pretty influential in the contest late."
Selwood was moved into attack in the second quarter, where he took a couple of telling contested marks.
"We pushed him forward in part because he wasn't moving as well and we didn't think he could do what he would normally do in the midfield for the whole game," Scott said.
"But he's a very (good) contested player, obviously, and if we had two of him we'd play one of them forward."