GEELONG'S impressive recent record against Hawthorn counts for little when the two teams meet on Friday night, according to Cats captain Cameron Ling.

The Cats have won their past six encounters against the Hawks, having not lost to them since the 2008 Grand Final.

"To me that's in the past. Those results don't have any bearing on Friday night. It's about us being able to implement what we want to do as best we possibly can and hoping that's enough to get the job done," Ling said on Monday.

But Ling knows the Cats are no certainty to continue that streak despite coming off a thumping 96-point win over Collingwood last week.

"We just know that we're in for a really good game of footy. They are a quality footy team, they play footy the right way and they have got mature players who know how to play the game and so do we. That equals, usually, a pretty good contest," he said.

"We always enjoy playing against them because we always know it is going to be a great contest and we need to be at our best. That's probably the main challenge of it."

After finishing the home and away season in second place, the Cats are well positioned for their fourth Grand Final appearance in five years.

But Ling said they were not looking that far ahead just yet.

"We can't look at Grand Finals or anything like that. We've just got to do the job on Friday night. There's no point looking further than that," he said.

"Hawthorn are too good a team and it's too good a competition to be looking past this Friday night."

Cats coach Chris Scott said Geelong was wary of Hawthorn, who had a narrow win over Gold Coast last weekend with eight of their best players missing.

"Their form has been really good over a long period of time this season. We certainly expect them to play somewhere near their best which means it is going to be one hell of a contest, assuming we can play somewhere near our best," Scott said.

"Their game style looks pretty sustainable. They have beaten all sorts of different styles. We are going to have to make sure in and around the contest we at least match them."