Geelong coach Chris Scott will recall one star and remains open-minded to the summoning another proven trio for his club's preliminary final.
Tom Stewart is certain to return after being a late Cat scratching from their 84-point hammering of Port Adelaide on Thursday night.
The qualifying final romp at Adelaide Oval secured Geelong an MCG preliminary final in a fortnight - the club's 13th prelim in 18 years.
But Geelong veterans Tom Hawkins and Cam Guthrie, and ruckman Sam De Koning, will be forced to press their claims for recalls in VFL ranks.
Hawkins (foot) and Guthrie (Achilles) and De Koning will feature in Geelong's VFL semi-final on Saturday.
De Koning returned from a knee injury in state league ranks last weekend and was an unused emergency for the Cats' qualifying final against Port.
Five-time All Australian Stewart was pulled from Geelong's side which dished out Port's second-biggest finals loss with a 20.18 (138) to 7.12 (58) triumph.
Stewart was substituted out of Geelong last home-and-away game because of hamstring tightness but fell ill in Adelaide.
"He had a good couple of weeks of training and we were really optimistic that he would be right," Scott said.
"But as always, and this has been our history ... you don't need to think too far back to big games where we make conservative calls even on really good players who have had some doubt.
"So we were still sort of weighing that up (on Wednesday night) and he started to come down with a bit of the 'flu.
"And then by the time he woke up (on Thursday) he was crook enough that he wouldn't play so it just made the decision for him and us a little bit easier.
"Hand on heart, we were leaning towards not playing him.
"And we made the conservative call with De Koning as well, he will get a game on Saturday and then we can be more sure that he's really ready to come in and play near his best.
"They're perfect examples of when you play well, we go: 'a great decision'.
"And if we'd have played poorly it would have been: 'what could have been if we had played Stewart and De Koning'."
Geelong's games record-holder Hawkins has been sidelined by his foot injury for more than two months - the 36-year-old announced last month he will retire at season's end.
Guthrie has played only four AFL games this year.
"Our plan all along was for them to play (VFL) this week so we'll push on with that," Scott said of the evergreen duo.
Asked about their AFL preliminary final prospects, Scott said his rationale would be "stay optimistic, stay open-minded".
"Keep all the options on the table and make good decisions in the moment, resist the temptation to forecast too much," he said.
"I could sit here and speculate and it wouldn't help anyone."
