Geelong coach Chris Scott says Port Adelaide’s push for Travis Boak to quickly decide his AFL future prompted the Cats’ weekend trip to Adelaide to make their case.

Scott expects a decision soon on whether Boak, the Power’s joint reigning best and fairest, will join the Cats.

He has suggested the Power’s angry public reaction to himself and Geelong senior players Joel Selwood and Jimmy Bartel meeting with Boak in Adelaide on Sunday was largely about public relations.

“They’ve got to tell their members that they’re fighting hard to keep a really good player,” Scott told reporters on Tuesday.

The Power have accused the Cats of lacking subtlety.

But Scott said Boak needed to be able to make an informed decision.

“It would be a slightly different situation if Travis and Port Adelaide said ‘We’re not going to talk about it until the end of the year,'” Scott told reporters on Tuesday.

“Then we would respect that and wait until the end of the year as well.

“But he’s being pushed to make a decision, so he needs to understand all the options.”

Scott said the Cats’ visit was no “clandestine mission”.

“It was no surprise to Port Adelaide that we were going to be speaking to Travis,” Scott said.

While Port Adelaide were told the Cats were in talks with Boak, they were not specifically warned of Sunday’s visit.

But Cats football manager Neil Balme said there was nothing to hide.

“The young bloke made it public knowledge that he might be interested in going home,” Balme told AAP.

“Our position was if he chose to leave Port Adelaide we wanted him to understand he would have a position with us.”

Scott said the Power would be fairly compensated in a trade if Boak moves.

While 23-year-old Boak is not a free agent, Scott said with free agency’s introduction this year all clubs were talking to rival players.

“As an industry we’ve got to be a little bit more mature than we have been in the past when it comes to the movement of players,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Cats coach remains unsure why Geelong keep having poor first quarters.

The Cats were 34 points down at quarter-time in Saturday night’s loss to Collingwood and have won just two of their past nine first terms.

“I’m not 100 per cent sure that we have the answer but we’re working at it,” Scott said.

Key forward James Podsiadly is unlikely to return from an ankle injury against Essendon on Friday night.