Ruthless Cats won't be cocky

The Cats are playing down the talk of parallels with Carlton's upset Preliminary Final win over Essendon nine years ago and have promised to be at their ruthless best in Friday night's cut-throat clash with the Western Bulldogs at the MCG.

Assistant coach Ken Hinkley said there's no prospect at all the defending premiers, who are at short odds to advance to the Grand Final, will go in over-confident.

"We're going to approach the game knowing there's a contest to be done and we have to be at our ruthless best to make sure we come away with a win," Hinkley said ahead of training at Skilled Stadium on Thursday morning.

"Geelong are not being cocky, Geelong are being what they should be and that's a side with an ability to play games really hard for the whole season and let's hope we have another one of them."

Hinkley said the four contenders in the mix to replace injured pair Paul Chapman and Brent Prismall would not need to dazzle on the track on Thursday to press their claims.

He said James Kelly, David Wojcinski, Ryan Gamble and Shannon Byrnes have been 'around the mark' all season and Wojcinski won't be disadvantaged by his lack of exposure at AFL level over the past 10 weeks.

"You would like him to have had more AFL game time than he's had but we've just got to pick 'em ... knowing that their history says that they are good players."

Hinkley denied Chapman, who ran laps on Thursday while his team-mates took part in a leisurely 45-minute session, had suffered a setback in his bid to overcome a hamstring strain and said the club would wait and see on his fitness for the Grand Final should the Cats qualify.

"We've made a decision based on the facts and the facts are we have to have fit players," Hinkley said.

"He was clearly a chance to get up this week but as we've done all year our medical team have been fantastic and we've made early calls to make sure we don't put the team at risk for the sake of an individual and that's what we've done again."

"It's purely a conditioning thing, it's not a terrible injury or anything but it's just a conditioning thing that we have to get right."

Skipper Tom Harley did nothing more strenuous than stretches away from the main group on Thursday and quit the session after 30 minutes.

All-Australian forward Steve Johnson also left the track early while Mathew Stokes' involvement was largely limited to handball drills and some light running.