CTV> Head coach Mick Malthouse and captain Nick Maxwell fronted the media on Thursday at the AFL House ahead of the NAB Cup grand final

ONE coach could be excused for still lamenting the one that got away last September and the other won’t even be in charge on Friday night – but Geelong’s Mark Thompson and Magpie counterpart Mick Malthouse are both talking up the importance of the NAB Cup grand final.

For the Cats, Friday night is just another step, a final tune-up before they begin what they hope will be a long journey to redemption after losing last year’s Toyota AFL premiership decider to the Hawks.

And Thompson, with close to his best side on the paddock, can smell the home-and-away rounds and knows Friday night will give his troops their sternest test of the pre-season.

“You do get excited,” the Cats coach said from Docklands on Thursday.

“You probably don’t get as excited in the first three matches [of the NAB Cup] but certainly once you get to this stage you get excited.”

Thompson knows the importance of such games after his club won the NAB Cup three years ago. They can be landmark occasions for clubs.

While 2006 was a disastrous season on the field for Geelong it would, in hindsight, turn out to be a turning point for the club.

“We hadn’t won one [a trophy] for a long time … certainly to experience that and to get some silverware for the club was really important I think in the whole scope of things,” he said.

On Friday night the Cats face a Collingwood side similarly hungry to stand on any dais and hold a cup.

It was 1990 when the Magpies were last able to do so, with Tony Shaw and Leigh Matthews hoisting the day premiership cup.

Brad Scott will be calling the shots in the coach’s box against the Cats as Malthouse continues his policy of educating his assistants and giving them match-day experience.

But the veteran mentor is still very eager to land the grand prize.

“I think any silverware is worthwhile achieving and certainly going out to try to get, particularly against quality opposition,” Malthouse said.

The coach will continue his pre-season ploy of sitting boundary-side and, like his opposition, has only named those players 100 per cent fit.

But Malthouse said the pre-season competition continued to be a vital part of every club’s preparation.

“I don’t think anyone devalues the competition,” he said.

“You don’t necessarily go out there with your full complement of players because what do you really achieve by not knowing come round one, two or three or perhaps into the season, when you’ve got the opportunity to perhaps play Dayne Beams, Steele Sidebottom, Ben Reid in the backline (if they can handle it in the AFL)?

“We achieve nothing if we don’t trial those things, but you trial them to win.”

And on Friday night, with a trophy on the line, both teams will be hell-bent on doing just that.