Patrick Dangerfield in action against North Melbourne in round five. Picture: AFL Photos

GEELONG coach Chris Scott has downplayed the prospect of Patrick Dangerfield returning in round 13, vowing to be patient with the injured superstar.

Dangerfield, who is recovering from a syndesmosis ankle issue that represents the most serious injury of his decorated 271-game career, recently resumed running and flagged his goal to return against Port Adelaide on June 10.

Scott has cautioned that might have been a touch optimistic from the 2016 Brownlow medallist.

"He's made some public comments, he's always pretty keen to get back sooner rather than later," Scott said.

"But our approach is to be a little bit more patient.

"We'd like to see more training from him.

"We've seen enough to think he's on the right track but we'll make sure he's really ready to go before we bring him in."

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The Cats will also be without Mitch Duncan for Saturday's clash with Collingwood at the MCG.

Duncan suffered a concussion during last week's win over Gold Coast but everything points towards the 2011 premiership player returning as soon as possible after sitting out this weekend.

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"He's not showing any signs or symptoms at all at the moment, so that's a good sign," Scott said.

"But as we all know with concussion, it can be a bit of a day to day thing."

Reigning best and fairest Cameron Guthrie has been named to face the Magpies despite hurting his shoulder in round 10.

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"He hasn't done much contact work during the week but it looked pretty clear early on that he was going to be OK to play," Scott said.

"Our expectation is he will play and be fine but we tend to leave those decisions as late as we possibly can."

Geelong is persisting with a ruck combination of Mark Blicavs and Esava Ratugolea but Scott reiterated that Rhys Stanley and Darcy Fort remain in the frame with the latter curiously added to the emergency list in place of Charlie Constable on Friday afternoon.

"We're a little bit horses for courses. There may be a time we think a different ruck structure might be called for," he said.