With a badly undermanned Power team limping to Melbourne for Saturday’s match, the Roos could be forgiven for a making a few tentative plans for a qualifying final showdown with Geelong.
But not so, according to the coach.
“I would have thought we would be concentrating on Port Adelaide this week, I really want to make that 100 per cent clear,” Laidley said.
When questioned about the probable qualifying final match-up with the Cats, Laidley said: “I reckon that is a pretty ordinary question to honest – I really do.”
“How can you honestly ask that question when we have got a game to play against Port Adelaide this week and we need to focus on that and you are asking me about playing Geelong next week?”
"I'll tell you right now, we don't talk about who we play or who we might play the following week until we win this game of footy. It's a bit of a myth with the media guys that we start to talk about what may or may not occur. You just can't afford to do that in this competition otherwise you get your pants pulled down."
The Kangaroos sit in fourth spot going into the match and hold their destiny in their own hands thanks to a two-point buffer over the three teams immediately below them; Collingwood, Adelaide and St Kilda.
It is still a considerable prize despite a rampant Geelong side awaiting the fourth-placed finisher, but Laidley said he had not concerned himself with possible scenarios regarding the ladder at all.
"I think if you concentrate on 'gee if we win this we're in fourth' you'll perhaps forget the job at hand," he said.
"We've gone through that this week and I think that it's important that we focus on the task rather than the result."
Laidley said Nathan Thompson’s ankle injury would prevent him playing at any level this weekend. The key forward faces a race against time for the second straight year in his quest to play finals.
Last season Thompson was close to making a surprise return from a knee reconstruction but didn’t make it on to the field.
