Geelong will welcome back the sporadically brilliant Steve Johnson for Friday night’s qualifying final against long-time nemesis Hawthorn after the star midfielder made a timely return to training on Wednesday.
Fellow veteran teammate James Kelly confirmed Johnson’s successful return to the track, claiming the three-time All Australian has been “ticking all the boxes” for a comeback against the Hawks.
“He’s trained all week … you don’t know a lot of the time with Stevie, you look at him and sometimes you think he looks terrible and he comes out and has 30 possessions,” Kelly said.
“He’s ticking all the boxes, he’s doing everything that’s been asked of him this week, he’ll be fine I’d say.”
Johnson is comfortable producing his best football on the biggest of stages and Kelly believes the 31-year-old can tip the scales against the reigning premiers despite not having played since sustaining a foot injury in round 20.
“Stevie lives for September and he really prides himself on playing his best footy at this time of year,” he said.
“He’s got too big of an ego not to play well.”
While it is widely known winning a premiership outside of the top four in almost impossible, history also says winning the qualifying final is a must with just 2006 premiers West Coast being the last team to suffer a week one defeat and recover to win the last week of September.
“We’re as good a chance as anyone,” Kelly added.
“Our best footy stands up in big games and we’ve always believed that right from 10 years ago.
“All year we’ve talked about our best footy being good enough … the downside to that is we haven’t played our best footy consistently enough.”
Geelong surrendered a first half lead and allowed Hawthorn to run out 94-71 winners when the two sides met a fortnight ago, however the Hawks will go likely go into Friday night’s clash without regular defenders Brian Lake and Matt Suckling, but should welcome back Luke Hodge, Brad Hill and Ben Stratton to the 22 as they look to add to a current five-game finals winning streak over the Cats.
Photo: Scott Barbour/Getty Images
