GEELONG coach Chris Scott has hinted the Cats will likely stick with Mark Blicavs as their primary ruck in the Grand Final, consigning Rhys Stanley to the sidelines.
The veteran big man missed the qualifying final win over Brisbane with a hamstring injury, and while declared fit to play in Friday night's 30-point preliminary final victory against Hawthorn, was ultimately left as an emergency.
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Blicavs was a very steady performer against the Hawks, slightly edged out in the hitouts but performing strongly around the ground.
"I think I said a couple of weeks ago that if Rhys is fit, we'd play him. There's obviously some nuance there. There's medically available – the way we think about it now, 'could play' is not enough, you have to answer the 'should play' question," Scott said.
"But the fact that [Blicavs has] gone so well leaves him in really good shape for next week. So that's probably a little bit of a pointer to the way I'm thinking, and I'm one of a group (of selectors)."
Tom Stewart will miss the Grand Final through concussion, and Geelong has the option of throwing unicorn Blicavs into defence, which would allow Stanley to return.
But if match-ups allow, and the Cats are faced with a shorter and quicker opposition forward line, emergency and small defender Jed Bews is another who may come into the selection frame.
"[Blicavs in defence] is an option for us. That's part of the planning as well. Even early in the game, you can sit down and go through all the potential scenarios, but you tend not to get down to, 'what if we lose our two most important defenders in the first quarter?'," Scott said.
"That's kind of like, well, okay, all bets are off a bit. I think we've had some questions over the last couple of years about our rucks, and we tend to not talk about the way we sort of think about things too much. Suffice to say, we're pretty comfortable with the way we can manage that sort of ruck-key position issue."
There will also be a watch on fellow key back Jack Henry, who hurt his ankle in the first quarter in a collision with Connor O'Sullivan, but returned and played out the game.
"It looked like Jack Henry might have been in doubt for the rest of the game," Scott said.
"Fortunately, the feedback we got was that there was a little bit of a nerve situation there that looked bad, temporarily, but came good. So that's a good news story.
"They're ultra-confident that he will be fine to train in a couple of days."