Cats ready to quell star Lions to reach AFL grand final

Geelong know they need to shut down Lachie Neale.

Brisbane are ready and waiting for the Cats to try to keep their star mover quiet - and some of his mates in maroon too.

Doing so is another matter altogether.

Geelong midfielder Tom Atkins has had some run-with roles at times and could yet get to grips with Neale in Saturday evening's AFL preliminary final at the MCG.

"Yeah, we'll see what happens. We'll talk about that during the week," a coy Atkins told AAP.

"But he's obviously a superstar, so any time you can curb his influence, I think it will go well to helping the team."

Two-time Brownlow medallist Neale, who is managing a lingering heel issue, was tagged with effect by GWS stopper Toby Bedford in Brisbane's thrilling semi-final win last week.

Veteran Dayne Zorko expected him to attract similar attention from the Cats.

"He cops it every week. So it'd be nothing new," Zorko said.

"We certainly plan for it."

Zorko, who has delivered drive and poise off half-back, also had to get to grips with attention, as GWS's James Peatling played a defensive forward role on him in the semi-final.

"Doesn't bother me either way," the 35-year-old shrugged.

"We saw last week, there were three or four of us who got a little bit of run with roles.

"But ultimately we do the same to the opposition. It's finals football, you've got to prepare for everything, and we're no different."

The Cats will also need to get to grips with Brisbane's ability to put the foot down and deliver a scoring blitz, after the Lions fought back from 44 points down against GWS.

"We've seen how good they played towards the end of the game last week, so we just really need to get the job done early, bring the right attitude and match them in the contest," Atkins said.

"They can get a run on. They're obviously a really strong attacking team. They've obviously got some some firepower forward.

"We as a mid group, need to figure out how we can help out our defenders best around the park."

After missing out on finals last year, Atkins was confident the Cats were well placed to do something special again.

"It's been a really fun year," he said.

"We had a great start to the year, and then throughout the middle of the year we had a bit of low patch and some challenges.

"We were able to work through that and I feel like now we've really found our stride as a team, and we're really clear on each other's roles and what we expect of each other.

"So very, very lucky and grateful to be challenging again."