His tributes to Steve Hocking, Andrew Mackie and Tom Lonergan, who are leaving Geelong were heartfelt, and his showing of respect for Adelaide and their coach Don Pyke was genuine, but most of all his message to the Geelong faithful was incredibly blunt.

After losing to the Crows by 61 points in Friday night's first preliminary final before an AFL record 53,817 fans at Adelaide Oval, Scott virtually appealed to the Cats to have a reality check.

"I hope no one associated with Geelong falls into the trap of thinking that we were close again and we just have to improve a little bit to go the next step," Scott said.

"The cold, hard reality is that we have to go back to the start.

"There are some really good football teams with a lot of talent that never made the eight this year, whom I suspect will get better. I wish we could just fast-forward to the preliminary final next year, but we have just got so much work in front of us to even make the finals before we even start talking about how we are going to improve at the pointy end of the series.

"We will look forward quickly. We will do the requisite work in review and do everything we can to improve."

The Cats battled tenaciously, but ultimately lacked the depth of quality in such a high pressure game. Without hint of excuse, Scott lamented at the fact Geelong have struggled to settle their side during a demanding season - yet finished second at the end of the home-and-away series.

"Adelaide lost McGovern and Smith [for this final] but it has been a credit to their organisation that they have been able to maintain such cohesion through a long period, especially the last two years," Scott said.

"Their good players have been playing well, when it has counted.

"We played really good footy last week and we were confident we could again this week, but the season has ebbed and flowed in terms of the cohesion of our group and injury list.

"We probably thought we had a few holes right through the course of the season that we were always battling to fill.

"There was one stage there when I think we played three debutantes, and eight or nine debutantes for the year. We had a lot of players used right across our list, and while it is a credit to the players they were able to still get us to finish second at the end of the home and away end, it would be much more preferable to be playing 25 or 26 players across the course of the year instead of 36."

Scott made moving tributes to Hocking - "... one of the best people I have met in footy", Andrew Mackie - "...I hope he stays at our football club because he is just such a good football person" and Lonergan - "... watching him go back again with the flight of the ball; he virtually doesn't have any internal organs left but he continually puts his body on the line for his mates".

The coach then applauded Adelaide. "They were fantastic tonight," Scott said. "They were pretty much two games clear with two games to go in the season and their performance across the season well and truly justified the position they put themselves in tonight. They still had to get it done and they executed it extremely well.

"Their skill level ... how many goals did they kick out from the boundary line? That's not luck; it's a credit to their skill. Their coach Don has done a terrific job with them. They well and truly deserve to be where they are. From the Geelong footy club we wish them all the best."