Geelong premiership captain Cameron Ling has questioned the mindset of Cats players after Chris Scott's side slumped to their third upset defeat in just over a month.
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The Cats enter the bye well placed with 10 wins and four losses, but have lost to Collingwood, Carlton and St Kilda in the past six weeks. All three sides are in the bottom half of the ladder.
Ling queried whether Geelong players were focused on the right things when facing lower-ranked opposition.
"This could be unfair because I'm not in the inner sanctum, but I could only put it down to an approach that isn't 100 per cent as detailed and as perfect as it should be," Ling told 3AW on Sunday.
"I'm not talking about the coaches' preparation, because I can be assured that their messages and their meetings would be exactly that. It is the individual players and their mindset of, 'Yeah, we'll win this one and I'm doing pretty much everything I need to do to prepare, but I also want to get on the end of a few, I want to kick a few goals, I'm going to get a few touches.'
"A few players now have had really ordinary games in those games we're talking about, where the expectation was they'd win."
Ling named Steven Motlop and Mitch Duncan as culprits.
Motlop averaged just 14 disposals across the three games, down on his season average of 18.5. Duncan has averaged 26 disposals in the three surprise defeats, above his season average of 24.
"Steve Motlop had no influence last night (in the loss to St Kilda), was poor, made poor mistakes. He's done that a few times this year. Chris Scott's spoken about it.
"His 'good' is outstanding, but his 'not so good' is extremely poor, and Steve's acknowledged that as well.
"Mitch Duncan was really quiet in the first half yesterday, almost non-existent [but he] built his way into the game after that."