GEELONG star Steve Johnson is likely to slot straight back into midfield if he is passed fit to face Hawthorn in Friday night's qualifying final, Cats coach Chris Scott says.

Johnson has been sidelined for the past three games due to a sore foot, but will line up against the Hawks if he gets through Wednesday's training session unscathed.

The Cats' medical staff mapped out a plan for Johnson to be available for the first week of finals and Scott is confident the mercurial veteran's fitness won't be affected by the lay-off.

However, the Cats coach admitted he was also open to the option of unleashing Johnson in his former role in attack.

"He could do that, but he's an outstanding centre bounce player and he's a really important contested player for us as well," Scott said on Fox Footy on Monday night.

"The information I've got from our medical staff, who I rate really highly and have a lot of confidence in, is that he's had such a big body of work through the season that this period of time off is not going to greatly affect his fitness.

"If anything it will have him a little bit fresher.

"I would expect him to play mainly his normal role, but he's an outstanding forward 50 player as well so it's nice to have that up our sleeve."

Johnson missed the Cats' 23-point round 22 loss to Hawthorn – when Geelong coughed up a 33-point lead in the third term.

Despite being played just two weeks ago, Scott said that match would bear "no resemblance" with Friday night's final due to the stakes being vastly different.

"I think we saw that our good footy works against them. Now they would probably say that was their bad footy and then it was reversed in the second half," Scott said.

"But you'd have to have your head completely in the sand to think that that game was the most important game in the context of the season.

"So I'm not saying that it was match practice, but I am saying that it had no resemblance to the game we're going to play on Friday night."

Twitter: @TravKing_AFL

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