THE NEED to keep pace with the top four appears likely to prevent Geelong from resting players from its upcoming matches against cellar-dwellers Melbourne and Greater Western Sydney.

Quite a few Cats stars, including skipper Joel Selwood and midfielder Steve Johnson, have been playing sore in recent weeks.

Although they would no doubt appreciate a weekend off, the pressure is on the team to keep winning to ensure it snares a double-chance for the finals.

"We've never made decisions going into a game thinking we've got it won and we can afford to chop out guys without good reason," Scott said at Simonds Stadium on Tuesday.

"But if we get to the stage later in the week where those guys aren't quite right, then we'll make a really considered decision.

"We'll continue to manage our list as we have in previous years.

"As was the case with James Kelly on the weekend, if guys are slightly too sore to play, given we've got pretty good depth on our list at the moment, then we'll make those decisions closer to the game."

Kelly was a late withdrawal from the Cats side that narrowly defeated the Western Bulldogs on Sunday evening.

The club initially said that Kelly was simply suffering from "soreness", leading to assumptions that he had been rested.

Scott then said on Tuesday that Kelly had a "specific" injury. Asked if he was prepared to elaborate on it, Scott replied, "No."

Nevertheless, the veteran defender is almost certain to be fit enough to play against Melbourne.

"We're assuming (he'll be right for this week)," Scott said. "But it is an assumption. We haven't trained yet, so we need to have a look at all our players."

Scott said he had been part of a productive discussion with the umpiring department about the free-kick count in the win over the Bulldogs, which finished 25-13 in the Dogs' favour.

"We've been really impressed with the communication between the umpiring department and our club," he said.

"That's really all we ask for. We accept that mistakes happen. Sometimes the 50-50s go against you.

"But we continue to get clarification … around certain rules and certain adjudications.

"I think it's a really good development that they're the first ones to put their hands up if they think they've made some errors."