Geelong coach Chris Scott offers no excuses for Cats loss to Collingwood Geelong coach Chris Scott talks with champions Joel Selwood and Jimmy Bartel. GEELONG coach Chris Scott declined to use the excuses of a poor start or injuries as a reason for the Cats recording their first loss of the season against Collingwood at the MCG on Saturday night. For the third week in a row the Cats found themselves four goals down in the second quarter, only to come back and snatch the lead late in the game with an eight goal l third term. Unlike the previous two weeks against Richmond and Essendon, however, the Cats could not go on with the job, losing by six points. "It was more a reflection of the inconsistency we've had through the season," Scott said when asked about the Cats' lethargic start. The unfortunate reality at the moment is that we're not playing well enough consistently enough to win games. Pies reign supreme Our first half was as poor as I've seen us play this year, which probably leads you to believe that we should lose the game. We've got to keep improving our game and if we had have found some way to get over the line I'd be saying exactly the same thing. The Cats lost playmaker Steve Johnson as a late withdrawal to a calf injury, and had to sub off Billie Smedts at quarter time after he twisted his left ankle in the opening term. When the match was up for grabs in the final term, game-breaker Allen Christensen missed a vital chunk of play after a knock to the head. But Scott refused to use those injuries as an excuse for the Cats "running out of legs" in the final term. (Christensen) was one of the players who really got us going when the chips were down and he was off the ground for about a 10-minute period in the last quarter. That hurt a little bit, but again, pretty feeble excuses I reckon if we're going to resort to those sort of things. Johnson, who has expressed an ambition to coach after he retires as a player, spent some time in the coaches box and Scott said his contribution was "pretty good." "He made some astute observations," Scott said. But my strong preference is to have him on the field though and hopefully he'll be back this week. It's a pretty minor issue with his calf, but I said that about Paul Chapman didn't I? So we're pretty wary. Scott praised his young players, saying Jackson Thurlow, George Horlin-Smith and Jordan Schroder had all impressed and helped improve the team. Asked for the reason his team had dropped its first match of the season, Scott replied: "Was their pressure really good or did we not handle the pressure? And the obvious answer to that is it's a bit of both. We thought that there was a clear way to play the game and we didn't do that. They tackled really well and pressured really well and we allowed them to do that.