ONE afternoon late last year young Cats star Cameron Guthrie struck up the courage to drop his resume into a Geelong business.

You might expect a budding AFL entrepreneur to tap the shoulder of a coterie group member in construction or finance.

GUTHRIE CONFIDENT MORE SUCCESS TO COME WITH CATS

His former captain Cameron Ling basically owns Geelong given his network of pubs and restaurants.

Yet here was Guthrie accepting a weekly shift at Belmont’s Cold Rock ice cream shop with all the scooping, cleaning and customer service that entails.

In the words of TV interrogator Luke Darcy, say that again.

media_camera Cam Guthrie in action. Picture: Colleen Petch

Guthrie is an AFL star from Generation Entitlement yet his part-time job reveals a balanced approach to life.

He dreads any interpretation that paints him as a true believer seeking deeper meaning to life.

Instead he went seeking a slice of perspective.

“I was going to keep it on the down low, but I have been doing it a couple of months, a shift a week,’’ he tells the Herald Sun.

“And it’s great. A lot of the guys there are my age and it’s nice to associate myself with people outside the footy club.

“I worked pretty hard at school and footy was always big for me so I never had a part-time job growing up.

“Sometimes when you are not playing footy you are not living in the real world. So I like to expose myself to outside opportunities.

“I got a call back from one the bosses after I dropped in my resume and he said, “Is this a joke?” And I said I am dead serious. Nino and Trent have been outstanding.

“When you run out on the field and kick a goal and the crowd cheers it’s not personal. This will sound really soft, but it’s nice to do something that is a little more real in a way.

“I love playing footy, but it’s nice to do something different.”

media_camera Cam Guthrie keen to play more attacking role. Picture: Colleen Petch

The former Calder Cannon midfielder who inherited Gary Ablett’s No.29 jumper has always had the common touch, which is why he is beloved in Geelong’s inner sanctum.

But after four years learning the trade as a small defender and star tagger, his time is now.

After Joel Selwood tried and failed to hold up Geelong’s entire midfield in last year’s finals, it is time for Guthrie to unleash hell.

He is being told by coaches Chris Scott, Nigel Lappin and Matthew Knights to start showcasing the attacking skills he has repressed playing on rival stars Patrick Dangerfield, Nathan Fyfe and Scott Pendlebury.

If Jimmy Bartel and James Kelly will make temporary incursions into the midfield, youngsters Guthrie, Josh Caddy and co. must stand up on a permanent basis.

“I don’t think it’s a massive deal that I might play more as a free-flowing mid,’’ says the understated Guthrie.

“But it’s a chance to make work on that side of my game and introduce some of those things into my game.

“When you look at our stats and clearance numbers compared to our next best mids it shows we were relying on (Selwood) too much at stoppages.

“We have been doing a lot of work and I think this year we can spread the load. We have a big group of mids that contribute so hopefully that will work for us.”

If the straight-sets departure from September still stings, so much has changed in the off-season to take the focus off those losses to Hawthorn and North Melbourne.

Allen Christensen and Travis Varcoe are gone, replaced by Mitch Clark, Rhys Stanley and Sam Blease.

media_camera Cam Guthrie at Kardinia Park. Picture: Mitch Bear

If Selwood, Mathew Stokes and Steve Johnson are still going strong, Guthrie knows the middle-tier must lift.

“We are in that 22-24 year old age group. Mitch Duncan had an outstanding year last year coming third in our best-and-fairest. Josh Caddy missed a chunk of the first half of the year but had a great finish to 2014 and Billy (Smedts) has had a few unlucky injuries but he’s got real spark and X-factor.”

Geelong’s midfield group have pounded out the kilometres in a new approach to the pre-season, with Mark Blicavs again streeting the field.

But this time Guthrie has often led the chasing pack, as he is urged to back in all his strengths as a player by his coaching panel.

Now comes the time to put up after so much off-season toil.

And if the club has moved on from the straight-sets exit, it hasn’t been forgotten.

Especially by those like Guthrie keen to add a premiership like their much-decorated teammates.

“We worked so hard to put ourselves into a top four position and to throw away that double chance, it’s really disappointing.

“I haven’t had that premiership success so it’s something that really drives me and the guys who have won flags are pretty keen to taste that success again.

“We play Hawthorn and Fremantle in the first two rounds which is always a big task, so we are really looking forward to getting into the real stuff.”