Geelong is facing the “end of days”, but must look back at the last time it conquered oblivion 11 years ago to avoid serious decline.

After his side’s preliminary final belting at the hands of Melbourne, Cats coach Chris Scott made the comparison between now and the end of 2010, the last time it was thought the club was tipping over the edge.

In that off-season, which came after flags in 2007 and 2009 and a preliminary final thumping from eventual premiers Collingwood, the club saw coach Mark ‘Bomber’ Thompson cut his contract short citing “burnout”, while Gary Ablett left to join Gold Coast.

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After a coaching search, the Cats landed on then-Fremantle assistant Scott, who guided the side to its third premiership in five years.

“We have had a plan over a period of time that wasn’t dependant on a good win or a bad loss at the end of the season. We’re always looking at ways we can tweak our plan a little bit,” Scott said on Friday night.

“It’s not for me to defend right at the moment... what I will say is in my time and at the end of 2010, Geelong had a bad loss in a prelim final and it was ‘the end’ then. So that’s our challenge.”

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AFL 360 host Gerard Whateley believes it’s a fair comparison to make, but if the Cats are serious about solving their issues, they need to be as aggressive as they were in 2010.

“It felt like the end of days. So there are big conversations for Geelong to have, and I thought it was really telling that Chris Scott, unprompted, referenced 2010,” he said on Fox Footy.

“This is the last time they faced the end of days conversation after a belting in the preliminary final, and a lot happened in the aftermath of that.

“The coach Mark Thompson unexpectedly left, there were quotas put in place to serve the future as well as tending the present, but with a real eye towards the future whenever there was a decision to be made. And there were constraints put around the new coach coming in.

“Steve Hocking’s the new chief executive; it’s his job to run these conversations I suspect as he walks into it, and they have questions to answer around list, and style, but it’s more than that.

“They have philosophical questions to answer now around the present and the future. And they’ve faced them one before, did it successfully, but they didn’t just walk through 2010 and win a flag in 2011, there were a whole lot of critical decisions that were made.”

Adding to the comparison between 2010 and 2021 is reported interest in Scott himself.

Carlton is chasing outgoing Geelong CEO Brian Cook and could announce him as the replacement for Cain Little “as early as this week”, according to 3AW Sportsday host Sam McClure.

“I think that absolutely opens the door for the Blues to have a red-hot crack at Chris Scott, who has one more year left on his deal at Geelong,” he added.

If Scott were to leave, it would be part of the “cold and calculating” style of Geelong’s 2010 revamp leading into the 2011 premiership.

“I do think this is the end of 2010 revisited,” Whateley said on Fox Footy.

“And such shrewd decisions, to the point where if my memory serves, Neil Balme put all the parameters in place and they hired Chris Scott, and he said to the new coach if this fails, it’s us, it won’t be you. It’ll be us.

“So that really cold, strategic analysis that they now have - belted by Port Adelaide in the qualifying final, obliterated in the prelim - there are no ‘we’re really close to Richmond, the team of the era’, there are no alibis this time around. So if you don’t adjust to that, if you don’t react to that, then they will fall.

“They have to be creative and intuitive, and they probably have to be everything that we’ve admired across a 15-year period, about how cold and calculating you need to be.”

Hawthorn great Jason Dunstall believes the Cats’ veteran stars “aren’t getting any better”, but truly finding a long-term path for them to take will be difficult.

“You’d be silly to write them off (in 2022), but the simple fact is Joel Selwood’s not getting any better ... I don’t think Dangerfield’s getting any better,” he said on Fox Footy.

“Tom Hawkins can’t get any better at his age, and he’s been brilliant in his 30s, but we’re looking at the players that have led on-field; you can’t expect them to carry the load.

“So who’s the next wave that’s going to pick up the slack, because those players will be there, but they can’t be the ones that have to get the job done all the time.”

He added: “That’s the biggest challenge, when you’ve finished top four, to undertake some aggressive decision-making that might see you undertake a decent step backwards before you can go forwards again.

“But it does look like they’re not going to go forwards from where they finished this year.”