By winning two of the past three premierships, the Cats have stamped themselves as one of the best teams of the past 20 years, but Hayes and his teammates are confident they can match it with Mark Thompson’s men on Friday night at the MCG.
“I think it’s really exciting for this group,” Hayes said at Moorabbin on Wednesday. “You obviously want to test yourself against the best and that’s where we see Geelong.
“We’ve got a lot of respect for them and every time we’ve played them in the last couple of years they’ve been really good games - really physical and tough - and they’ve gone right to the wire.
“We expect Friday to be the same.”
The Saints beat the Cats by 24 points when the teams met back in round 13, but the result didn’t do much to erase the hurt lingering from St Kilda’s grand final loss to Geelong in 2009.
Hayes acknowledges the Saints will be using that disappointment to spur them on this time around.
“I think every player would draw on it at some point,” Hayes said. “You’d like to think when games are getting tough and tight you could draw on those feelings and use it to your advantage.
“It’s been a different build-up [compared to last year]. A lot of the talk has been about Geelong and Collingwood and we’ve probably been on the back-burner a little bit.
“But we’ve earned the right to a double-chance by finishing in the top four and we’re as good a chance as anyone going into this finals series.”
Wet weather is predicted for Melbourne right across the weekend, and the damp conditions are likely to favour small forwards like Adam Schneider.
“We’ve all got a role to play,” Schneider said. “I hope we can get out there and do the business.”
