New Geelong captain Cameron Ling is unfazed by the growing view that the Cats' era of dominance is over, saying that the team is well-placed for a tilt at another premiership.
Since Round 5 2007, Geelong has won 63 matches and lost just seven times on its way to two premierships and a Grand Final appearance in 2008.
Such dominance hasn't been seen since Brisbane's triple-premiership-winning side earlier this decade, but even it didn't win as many matches as the Cats have in the same period.
The Lions went on to reach a fourth consecutive Grand Final in 2004, but many - including the 15 other captains - believe the Cats won't match that this year.
In the annual captains' poll on Thursday afternoon, only three skippers tipped Geelong to reach the last Saturday in September with the Bulldogs and Saints favoured to get there with six votes each. One captain even tipped the Cats to miss out on the finals altogether as only St Kilda, Western Bulldogs and Collingwood attracted a maximum 15 votes from the captains when asked which seven other clubs would feature in the top eight.
But Ling was unperturbed by the results of the poll, believing that Geelong still has what it takes to go all the way.
"We don't get that sense at all. Everyone's entitled to their opinion … we don't really listen to too much that goes in there, (they're our peers) but they're certainly not the Geelong Football Club," Ling said.
"We're just going to concentrate on what we can control and that is to prepare ourselves as best we possibly can and to hit Round 1 as hard as we possibly can and play as good a footy as we can. That's all we can control so that's all we'll focus on."
For so long it has been everyone chasing Geelong, but now St Kilda and Western Bulldogs look like the teams to beat this season and while Ling admits it's great to see other teams dominating the media, he won't be using it as motivation.
"We prefer to let the motivation come from within and drive each other to get better and better and aim to get better and achieve more," he said.
"Bulldogs are a fantastic team, St Kilda are a fantastic team, Collingwood, Adelaide, Hawthorn … I think that's probably the exciting thing about this year from a spectators' point of view is it's just such an even race, there's a number of teams that can possibly win the premiership, there's no one or two clear cut favourites, it's really wide open."
The off-field controversy surrounding Mathew Stokes - who was charged with drug possession and subsequently banished by the club - hasn't dampened the mood either with Ling saying the Cats have produced one of their best pre-seasons to date.
"It's been a usual pre-season. Pre-seasons are extremely hard, they always are, the effort required to have a really good pre-season and the time required is huge and we've trained really well. I've been pleased with the improvement of some of the younger guys, the senior guys who were involved in the Grand Final last year came back in really good nick," he said.
"I think the level of professionalism has stepped up even again, everyone now knows what sort of condition their body has got to be in for the rigours of an AFL season and the guys are stepping up to that and I think we have put ourselves in the best spot we can to start the year off well in Round 1 against Essendon."
Ling, who is entering his first season as captain, has big shoes to fill after Tom Harley led the Cats to their first premiership since 1963 with a record-breaking victory over Port Adelaide in 2007 and backed that up with last year's thrilling 12-point win over St Kilda.
But according to the midfielder, nothing has changed in his mind and that it doesn't matter who is labeled captain as it is the leadership group that controls the direction of the club.
"My focus and expectations are as they've been for the last few years and for every season I play it's to best do my role for the team and as far as leadership goes at Geelong it's very much the leadership group that really controls the direction of the club and that hasn't changed whether it's Tom as captain or me as captain or whoever in the future is captain," he said.
"The strength of the Geelong Football Club is in the group of leaders that we've got and are large bunch of blokes all pushing in the same direction."