WEST Coast ruckman Scott Lycett is set to play in Thursday night's elimination final against the Western Bulldogs despite carrying a posterior cruciate ligament injury in his left knee.
Lycett has been battling the injury since the midway point of the season and he pulled up extremely sore following the round 23 win over Adelaide.
He required scans early last week to check if there was any major damage.
Lycett has been carefully managed at training but Eagles coach Adam Simpson declared him an almost certain starter for Thursday night.
"He'll be in the side," Simpson said on Monday.
"We'll give him every chance to play. He'll train. Barring any type of difficulties at training we think he'll play."
Mitch Brown was held out of East Perth's WAFL final over the weekend to ensure he was available if required. Brown did fill the second ruck role in three games earlier in the year when Nic Naitanui was missing following his plantaris tendons surgery.
Young defender Jackson Nelson was also held over while Jack Redden and a couple of others played on limited minutes on Sunday to give the Eagles some options if any injury concerns emerge from their last two training sessions.
But the Eagles are unlikely to make any changes given their performance against the Crows in round 23.
The Eagles won the contested possession count by 24 against the Crows after dominating Hawthorn with a differential of +45 in round 22.
It was a different story against the Bulldogs back in round 11 when the Eagles lost by eight points at Etihad Stadium and Simpson said the Eagles would need to be on guard.
"We got beaten up that day," Simpson said.
"The contested ball differential was (+39), possessions (differential) was over 120, but I think we lost by eight points. So we were thereabouts, albeit we didn't deserve to win. We were disappointed with our efforts in that area.
"So we'll look at that a little bit but we'll probably look at our form over the last four or five weeks and I'm sure the Bulldogs will as well."
The Eagles will hold closed sessions on Monday night and Wednesday ahead of Thursday's final.