GEELONG coach Chris Scott has left the door ajar for midfielder Scott Selwood to be a late inclusion as the Cats departed for Perth on Saturday.
Boarding a chartered flight out of Avalon Airport, the Cats have taken two emergencies for Sunday's clash with West Coast, Jordan Cunio joining Selwood on board.
With the star trio of Joel Selwood, Patrick Dangerfield and Gary Ablett offering attacking power, Scott hinted Scott Selwood could provide defensive pressure to counter the Eagles midfield.
"It's just a matter of which one. For a side that's in transition, they've still got some pretty good players," Scott said."
"He's in the travelling party. We've got that option up our sleeve."
Midfielder Mitch Duncan was left out for a second consecutive week with hamstring tightness with Scott saying it's a call that could come back to bite them.
"He was close, but I think we've made good decisions to be a little conservative with those guys in the past and I think that's the right thing to do in this case," Scott said.
"He's probably close to the point where it might be a mistake not playing him, especially if the game's tight but it's a good sign for next week (against St Kilda)."
Sitting last in the competition for inside 50s, but with a phenomenal efficiency of 64 per cent score conversion per entry, Scott said wider changes needed to be made.
"The easy part looking at the stats would be get it in there more and keeping scoring just as well, which as we know doesn't always work," he said.
"We want to balance out our game, play it in our forward half more. We're number one scoring from stoppages in the comp, but last for scores against."
Questions were raised last week as second-year players Mark O'Connor and Zach Guthrie were both left exposed in one-on-one contests against Jarryd Roughead late in the game.
Scott said it was down to their teammates applying more pressure up the field.
"There's no team in the competition that'd be happy giving up 118 points as we did against the Hawks last week," he said.
"We definitely need to tidy up the whole ground defence. The individual defenders have done a pretty good job, they haven't been the biggest problem."
And while Scott said young key defenders Timm House and Ryan Gardner remained in consideration for selection, it would take a conservative approach with Harry Taylor's plantar fascia injury sustained in round one.
"The treatment's going to be conservative and by that I mean there'll be no surgical procedure," he said.
"By that approach it's hard to give a really definitive timeframe.
"He's going to play in the next couple of weeks, it's hard to speculate beyond that."
Scott said utility Mark Blicavs would be used in defence to man resting Eagles ruckman Scott Lycett at times, while acknowledging the threat of Willie Rioli and Liam Ryan in the air as well as at ground level.
The Cats' chartered flight departed Avalon Airport at 12pm and will fly back straight after the game on Sunday, arriving home at 1am. The new travel plan avoids the red-eye service and trims more than five hours off the total journey.