HAWTHORN coach Alastair Clarkson has conceded forward Cyril Rioli could be running out of time to play in the finals.  

Rioli hasn't played since injuring his hamstring tendon in round 15 against Gold Coast. 

The Hawks admitted recently he was progressing slower than expected and have maintained all along he would not be risked if he wasn't ready. 

He again failed to appear with his teammates when they trained at Waverley on Thursday. 

"He's got an injury that's pretty serious, he's missed a lot of footy and he had a scan two or three weeks ago that showed his progress hasn't advanced to the level we hoped it would," Clarkson said. 

"That doesn't mean he's been ruled out either. 

"He'll continue to progress his training over the next two to three weeks, and we're going to give him every chance to try and play. 

"But we're not going to put him or our team at risk either. 

"If he's not right to play, then unfortunately we have to proceed without him, but we've been able to manage OK without him thus far, and if we have to go through the finals without him again, that's what we'll do."

Clarkson said it was "business as usual" this week and maintained his team wouldn't drop off on Friday night against Collingwood despite having likely sewn up a top two finish.

Magpies coach Nathan Buckley warned on Wednesday of the perils of taking the foot off the pedal in the final round after his team "never really recovered" from being smashed by Geelong the week before finals in 2011.

But Clarkson said the Hawks would be at full strength with the exception of Rioli and Matt Suckling, and expected a strong showing from his team.

"It's business as usual. It's a great chance for us to rehearse our game plan for this week's game," he said.

"We've got a great opponent in Collingwood who are fierce competitions and have been great opponents of ours for a good period of time.

"It's just rehearsal for us and I think we found a gentle reminder of that in the first half last week, not that we went into the game without a full-on approach, but you know that anything below your very best is going to leave you short of good opposition.

"We rate Collingwood as a very good side, they've got a lot to play for and we've got to make sure we get ourselves right in time for finals footy.

"We think the best way to do that is continuity of your same group of players playing together and going into the finals with really good momentum and winning form."

Josh Gibson trained on Thursday after stubbing his toe against Geelong on Saturday night and Jack Gunston moved well despite landing awkwardly on his ankle last week.

Both are expected to play on Friday night. 

Suckling didn't train and will miss this week with knee soreness but Clarkson said he was confident he'd be fit for the first final.