Geelong and Brisbane will compete for a place in the Grand Final when they meet at the Gabba on Saturday night.

The preliminary final clash will be televised on Channel Seven, with the first bounce at 7.40pm AEDT.

“We have done a lot of hard work to get to this position, 18 teams are down to four and it is exciting,” Assistant Coach Matthew Knights told media on Wednesday.

“It’s a wonderful position to be in and should be embraced by all.

“I know our players are looking forward to this contest and meeting it head on, it’s going to be really exciting for them.”

The Cats are unlikely to make any changes to the team that defeated Collingwood by 68-points.

“It will be pretty hard to change the line-up that performed well against Collingwood, so at this stage it looks unchanged, but nothing has been formalised yet.

“We always leave selection pretty late, that is just the way we do it as a coaching group, we don’t decide to early in the week who the 22 is, so we will look at that as the week goes on.”

For and Against: Played 233 games | Won: 133 | Drawn: 2 | Lost: 98

Geelong has won two of the past three meetings between the two sides by an average winning margin of 23 points.

Last time they met: R6, 2020 – Geelong 11.7 (73) def Brisbane 6.10 (46)

Down by 10 points and two rotations at half time, the Cats bombarded Brisbane with seven unanswered goals in an extraordinary third term to setup a 27-point victory.

It started with Sam Menegola and Patrick Dangerfield in the midfield, while Gary Ablett produced his vintage best across half-forward and Tom Hawkins was involved in everything in attack as the Lions rolled over.

Broadcast & Match Details

Saturday 17 October from 7.40pm AEDT.
Watch: Seven, Fox Footy, Kayo
Listen: K Rock Football

Impressive Gabba Record

Both teams are undefeated at the Gabba this season. Geelong has won all four of its matches by an average of 56 points, while Brisbane is a prefect 10-for-10.

Geelong’s forwards have particularly enjoyed playing at the ground this season kicking 59.37 from four visits.

To tag or not to tag

Geelong’s midfield set the tone early in their big win against the Pies. This week they face a new challenge against a Brisbane midfield which features the best player in the game, Lachie Neale.

Neale leads the competition this season for disposals with 27.1 per game, but the Cats are yet to decide whether to tag the star onballer, one of the other Lions mids or simply back themselves in head-to-head.

“We traditionally do not play a heap of tag even though (Cam) Guthrie has done some really nice jobs for us this year on different players, I think (Brandan) Parfitt at times has played on opposition mids and gone to work," Knights said.

“We tend to back ourselves in a bit there, but we will nail that plan later in the week if we do go with one, but I have (Dayne) Zorko, Neale and even (Jarrod) Lyons as very unheralded in there, so they have a number of guys, (Hugh) McCluggage – where do you start and where do you stop. A lot of clubs have deep midfields and they’re no different.”

Hawkins on facing Andrews

One matchup everyone is looking forward to is the battle between the All Australian bookends Tom Hawkins and Harris Andrews.

Hawkins kicked three goals from 15 disposals last time the two sides met and will take confidence from that performance into the game on Saturday night.

“He’s got some great strengths with his one-on-one ability as good as anyone and the way that he reads the game is second to none, so he is a great player,” Hawkins said.

“We have played on each other a bit over the past four or five years - I will take confidence from the last time we played, have a look at what I did on the weekend and just go out there and play my game.”