When the Geelong contingent stepped off their team bus at Tullamarine on Friday, big men Mitch Clark and Rhys Stanley were not among those present.
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The news ended up being mixed. While Stanley made his own way to the airport and flew with the Cats to Adelaide, Clark stayed in Victoria, and will miss Friday night's clash against resurgent Port Adelaide at Adelaide Oval. It will be the second successive game the star forward has missed with a calf complaint.
In his place, backup forward Josh Walker is set to play again, as is Shane Kersten who travelled despite being substituted out of last Saturday night's match against Essendon with a hamstring injury.
Defender Harry Taylor wasn't sure whether Stanley would make his return from a quad ailment which forced him to be a late omission against the Bombers, with the man who took his place last week - Michael Luxford - also boarding the flight.
Stanley was named in the Cats side on Thursday night, while Luxford was omitted.
The Cats (5-5) are looking to snap a recent run of outs away from Victoria. They have lost both of their interstate games thus far in 2015, and are just two wins from eight starts when flying since the beginning of last year.
Taylor couldn't put his finger on the reasons for the travelling slump.
"We'd love to be playing much better interstate. I'd love to know the answer to it's but certainly disappointing."
But the experienced backman said the team had not changed anything in their preparation in order to cure the problem.
"We'll just focus on the simple things we need to do well, and hopefully it changes," he said.
If the run is to end this weekend, it will need to be done combating the cacophony of a Power crowd at their home amphitheatre.
Taylor struggled in his only appearance at the venue to date- the 40-point loss to Port last year - but was looking forward to the experience nonetheless.
"It's a really vocal ground to play footy, but we really enjoy that, no matter if they're cheering for you or the opposition, it's just great to be able to get 50,000 people at the stadium to watch a game of AFL, and I just love that…no matter if they're booing at us or yelling at us."
Taylor noted through that the Cats will need to begin strong in order to avoid the type of ambush that befell Hawthorn when the Hawks ventured to face the Power in round four.
"We have to start well, no matter who the opposition are, particularly over there in Adelaide, the crowd are very influential," he said.
GEELONG INTERSTATE 2014-2015
2014
Round 2 Brisbane Lions Gabba won by 25
Round 6 Port Adelaide Adelaide Oval lost by 40
Round 9 Fremantle Patersons Stadium lost by 32
Round 11 Sydney SCG lost by 7
Round 14 Gold Coast Metricon Stadium lost by 40
Round 18 GWS Spotless Stadium won by 7
2015
Round 7 Sydney ANZ Stadium lost by 43
Round 9 West Coast Domain Stadium lost by 56
