PREMIERSHIP Tiger David Astbury has backed midfielder Kane Lambert to prove his fitness on Tuesday and line up against Hawthorn on Thursday night at the MCG.
Astbury said before the Tigers' main training session that he was confident Lambert would be fit to return from an ankle injury suffered in round 21.
"Today is our main session so he'll get a good opportunity to test it," Astbury said.
"He's put together a huge body of work this season and he's a very important player to us.
"I'm not across the full situation with the medical staff but Kane's as diligent as ever, he's given himself every opportunity and from what I'm hearing he'll be every chance to play on Thursday night, which we're excited about.
"He's an unbelievable warrior and I'm sure he'll be fine."
Lambert looked to move freely in the session, engaging in a number of one-on-one duels with captain Trent Cotchin, who also trained freely despite managing soreness late in the season.
Dan Butler also pressed for selection at the Punt Rd session after playing a half of VFL on Saturday night following his round 16 ankle injury.
The premiership forward has been deemed fit for selection, but a decision on his availability will be based on his level of match fitness and the turnaround between his VFL hit-out and Thursday night.
Two-time premiership coach and this year's Jock McHale medal presenter Denis Pagan suggested on Monday the Tigers could suffer as the result of thinking too long about finals and going back-to-back.
But Astbury said there was no evidence to suggest the players were getting ahead of themselves.
"It's an interesting concept he's got," he said.
"Football's full of provocative comments, but you're not going to get one from me. Everyone is entitled to their opinion … we won't buy into that too much.
"I think naturally people might look to outcome a little bit, but with our playing group we're a week-to-week outfit.
"We've won 18 games this year and we back our system in, we don't look too much for outcomes, we just play to our strengths and generally that serves us well.
"If we look too far beyond that it will bite us, so we just look to the next session, the next game, and we're sure that will hold us in good stead."
Hawks coach Alastair Clarkson said last week the key to beating the Tigers was to deny their defenders the chance to mark the ball and quickly rebound, and instead try and bring it to ground.
Astbury said they were ready to match it with the Hawks on the deck if that was their tactic.
"If you focus too much on what they're trying to do, you'll probably just shoot yourself in the foot," he said.
"Obviously they've got great speed in their forward half and bringing the ball to ground is their strength.
"He said that us marking the ball back against them is something they're going to have to try and manage, but we think we've got good players to combat their speed at ground level should the ball be there as well, so we're ready."
The Tigers haven't been dominant in the weeks leading into the finals, but Astbury said that could end up being a positive as it ensured they had faced different challenges each week.
He also said it meant they hadn't been able to rest in a "position of comfort" in the past month.
"I think it's a blessing – we got a good look at different systems and how they're going to challenge us," he said.
"We've trained it and we'll continue to train it.
"Hawthorn will have looked at our last few games and looked for opportunities to unsettle us, and we think we'll be well prepared for that."
