COREY Enright's knee injury is a "day-by-day" proposition as he races to be fit for Geelong's preliminary final clash with Hawthorn.
The veteran Cats defender injured his medial ligament in their qualifying final loss to Fremantle.
He sat out last week's win over Port Adelaide in the semi-final, but always held hopes of an unlikely return if the Cats progressed deep into September.
With the club now booked into another finals meeting with the Hawks, Enright will push to get back in the side.
"It's not too bad. I haven't done much yet so it's a bit early to tell, really," Enright said when arriving at Monday night's Four 'N Twenty All Australian awards.
"It's hard to say [whether I'll play]. It's just day-by-day. I've just got to keep doing what I can do each day and see what happens later in the week."
The 32-year-old expects he will hit the track on Tuesday or Wednesday, and hopes to pass the required tests to be passed fit for a tilt at another premiership.
"It's improving each day, so that's good. It's all you can ask at this stage," he said.
Cats skipper Joel Selwood was also optimistic the running defender would be available.
"I know he's working around the clock…I'm confident [he will play]," Selwood said.
The Cats came from 23 points down at half-time against the Power last week to claim a 16-point win, thanks largely to a five-goal-to-one third term.
Selwood described it as "the Geelong of old".
"Out of our last 12 quarters, 10 of them have been poor. Our last two were really good, which gives us confidence going into this game," he said.
"It was really impressive [against the Power]. The boys put their foot down and when we work together we're a really hard side to stop."
