GEELONG coach Chris Scott is undecided whether Patrick Dangerfield will start in attack in next Friday night's preliminary final against Adelaide after the midfielder's best-on-ground performance at full-forward against Sydney.

Dangerfield was the catalyst for the Cats' 59-point demolition of the Swans in the second semi-final at the MCG on Friday night.

Starting as Geelong's deepest forward, Dangerfield's pace and strength in the air proved too much for All Australian defender Dane Rampe.

The reigning Brownlow medallist kicked 4.3 in the first half before Nick Smith was switched on to him. He did not score in the second half, but continued to give the Swans headaches, winning 14 of his 26 possessions after half-time and taking five of his eight marks.

When asked where Dangerfield would play against the Crows, Scott was understandably non-committal.

"Do we win the first centre bounce? Well if we do, we start him forward," Scott said.

"The hard part is winning the first centre bounce. As we always do, we'll go back and talk to our coaches tomorrow and get working, firstly, on how difficult the opposition are going to be to beat and then, hopefully, come up with some things that make it hard for them."

Scott said Dangerfield's ability to get involved in the game early – he had two goals within the opening seven minutes – gave his teammates belief that his move forward could work.

"If you could script it, you want your best players in the game putting your opposition on the back foot," Scott said.

"It doesn't always work that way, but I think it got our guys believing that when we got the ball forward that we had a pretty potent threat up there.

"It obviously destabilises the opposition as well."

In Dangerfield's absence Mitch Duncan, Sam Menegola and Scott Selwood stepped up to give the Cats the upper hand at the stoppages, while Mark Blicavs played a vital run-with role on Swans skipper Josh Kennedy, holding him to just three clearances.

Scott praised his midfield's ability to get the better of their highly rated Sydney opponents.

"Our midfield collectively were good. If you had have told me we would have been plus-25 contested possessions against Sydney, I would have thought that would give us a good chance," the Cats coach said.

Key defender Tom Lonergan was a late withdrawal from Friday night's game with food poisoning.

Scott said Lonergan had tried in vain to overcome his illness in time for the game.

"There were a few interventions during the day that made him feel a little bit better, and good enough to think maybe he should come up and see how he felt in the warm-up, but

he didn't even get to that stage," Scott said.

"Obviously Lonergan will come back, so we will have some headaches next week, which is good."