GEELONG defender Tom Stewart is confident the Cats can keep their premiership hopes alive when they face reigning premier West Coast in the first semi-final at the MCG on Friday night.

Stewart was one of Geelong’s better performers in their 10-point qualifying final loss to Collingwood with 23 touches and 10 marks.

Despite holding the Pies scoreless in the final term, the Cats were unable to recover after conceding a five-goal lead early in the game.

“It was a golden opportunity to get into a prelim but unfortunately we didn’t quite execute early, but we feel we gave ourselves enough chances and hopefully we can rectify that next week,” Stewart said post-match.

“Any finals game where you give a team a four or five goal head start is so hard to get back.”

“We just need to come with the right attitude, be better around the ball a little bit and give it a red-hot crack.”

After claiming the minor premiership with 16 wins during the home and away season, Stewart believes that if the Cats can get back to playing their brand of football, they can prevail against an 'impressive' Eagles outfit.

"I think we will just back our system in,” he said.

“We have done so well this year to put ourselves in this position, but looking ahead I suppose it was good practice because West Coast kick and mark as well and we need to be better with that with our defence.”

“They need to travel over here and they have quite a good record here as well, so it’ll be on."