GEELONG defender Mark Blicavs says he’s confident that only small alterations are required for the Cats to return to their best football.

With Geelong matching it with the ladder-leading Richmond just two games ago, Blicavs says the team won’t be throwing the baby out with the bathwater just yet.

 “We don’t think we need to change our game drastically,” he said.

“We think when we do play some good football we’re right up there, and we’ve shown it throughout the year that we can do that.

“We just need to play more consistently and just tweak a few little things, which we’ll start today at training.”

The Cats have surged late in both of their last two contests, raising questions as to whether Geelong has been too conservative with its ball movement early in matches.

“I wouldn’t say (we’ve played) safe. I’d just say we’re playing probably a bit riskier, a bit more aggressive football late because we have to,” Blicavs said.

“Whether it’s something we take into the first quarter … I don’t think we’ll pretend we’re four goals down at the start of the game.

“But I think the way we move the ball and defend with the ball, I think, is something we can improve on.

“It’s finding that right balance between that aggressive attacking football without conceding too many goals early. It’s something we are talking about.”

Blicavs says the Cats will now turn all their attention to a matchup with Freo this week, rather than focusing on the big picture.

“It’s probably easy for that to happen (having a finals focus), but we’ve just got to focus on training well and playing well this week,” he said.

“We need to prep as well as we can to give ourselves the best opportunity beat Freo.

“We’re pumped that we’re back down here for our next two games, and we just want to put in a good block of training work and try and improve because we need to improve.”