ALTHOUGH no one from Arden St will admit it, the Kangarooswill view Geelong'sloss of key defender Matthew Egan as a great opportunity for their big forwardsto shine in this weekend's first qualifying final against the Cats.

The Roos have already shown they can scorefreely against Geelong'swell drilled defence. Their scores of 118 points in round five and 91 points inround 20 ranking as the highest and fifth highest points tallies kicked againstthe most frugal backmen in the competition in 2007.

The loss of Egan may lessen the influenceof Geelong'screative backline pairing of Matthew Scarlett and skipper Tom Harley, who maybe forced to play more defensive roles to cover for their injured teammate.

One player who should benefit from the holein the Cats' defence is David Hale, who admits that he struggled up forward inthe last meeting between the two sides.

As you would expect at this time of theyear, Hale says all the right things about Geelong being able to find adequate cover forEgan, however he does admit that the Roos have the firepower to exploit whatmay turn out to be a weakness for the Cats on Sunday.

"They've obviously still got Harleyand Scarlett, but we've got a few big blokes who can play forward," Halesaid at training this week.

"We've obviously got Drew [Petrie],Corey Jones, Leigh Brown and Aaron Edwards up there in the forward line who cantake a couple of grabs as well.

"We spread the load with thegoalkicking again last weekend [against the Bulldogs] which is a big target ofours. If we can get that spread of two or three goals each, that's what we areafter."

While creating havoc up forward will be akey focus for Hale on Sunday, he knows that at some stage he'll be helping outHamish McIntosh in the ruck against the Geelongcombination of Brad Ottens, Mark Blake and possibly even Steven King.

"Ottens has probably been in the bestform he's been in for a couple of years.

"You'd imagine H will get the firstcrack and that's obviously going to be a big job for him.

"They've also got Blake or King -that's a very good combination so it'll be a big challenge."

A further challenge for the Roos will befor their younger players to perform in front of the biggest crowd of theirseason.

Estimates place Sunday's crowd at somewhereapproaching 80,000 fans; over the past two years the Roos have not played infront of a crowd of more than 50,000.

Hale thinks that will only help histeammates rise to the occasion.

"It's exciting more than daunting, Ithink.

"We played Collingwood one Friday acouple of years ago when there was about 65,000. They do that regularly and wegot up in that one so I think that won't have too big a bearing on the result.

"Personally I hope we can get a fewmore than that at the G on Sunday – fans of both sides and footy fans ingeneral.

"We both play a pretty good brand offooty, and I think we're pretty evenly matched so it should be a really goodcontest.

"We've both won once against eachother so it's going to come down to who plays best on the day and who takesfull advantage of their chances."