GEELONG captain Joel Selwood is backing ailing superstar Patrick Dangerfield to play through significant pain and lead the Cats back into AFL premiership contention.

Dangerfield has been managing an injury to his right hand and was clearly affected during Geelong's qualifying final defeat to Port Adelaide.

The 31-year-old had tape around his ring and small fingers on Friday night to protect the injury.

But Selwood, who will break Geelong's games record in the semi-final against GWS, has full faith in Dangerfield's performances in finals.

"He'll (Dangerfield) probably just handle the balls a little bit more this week just to work out how to best use it," Selwood said.

"But he's played with a number of injuries throughout his career so it's not something new to him.

"Being a teammate of Patty, he's one that I want to take to the field with come finals time."

Geelong have arrived in Perth to prepare for their sudden-death clash with the Giants at Optus Stadium in an eerily similar position.

The 43-point belting at the hands of the Power was the Cats' eighth loss from nine appearances in the opening week of the finals during the past decade.

But only once - in 2014 - have Geelong made a straight-sets exit and have usually been able to respond from a disappointing first week loss.

"We don't look back too much ... we've reviewed the game for what it was," Selwood said.

"We played poor. We didn't have a lot of winners on the night but what we do is we set ourselves up for a second chance."

Geelong last met the Giants in round 21, with a depleted GWS unit causing a massive upset at the Cats' GMHBA Stadium fortress.

But the Giants, who survived a one-point elimination final thriller against Sydney, are likely to be without superstar Toby Greene.

The dual All-Australian will face the tribunal this week after being charged for making contact with umpire Matt Stevic against the Swans.

Greene was close to best-on-ground with four goals against Geelong three weeks ago.