SYDNEY Swans forward Henry Playfair predicts a win for his former club Geelong in Saturday's grand final, and also for the clash to be a high-scoring one.

Playfair represented Geelong 52 times before crossing to the Swans at the end of last season in exchange for draft selection 44.

Before leaving the club, he took his place for its reserve side in the VFL grand final, which preceded Geelong's triumph at the elite level a week later.

"I'm looking forward to seeing a close and exciting game but I think it'll be the Cats by 23 points," he said on Wednesday.

"As for low-scoring, I'm not so sure. The last clash [between Geelong and Hawthorn] was low-scoring but both sides have pretty attacking weapons.

"It depends on which way they go, whether they go all out or try to shut each other down."

The 25-year-old has maintained a lot of the friendships from his time at the Cats, and touched base with a number of his ex-teammates last week to wish them well for the preliminary final against the Western Bulldogs.

This time last year, Geelong – the town – was engulfed by grand final fever, and Playfair expects it to be the same again.

"The whole town will be pumped," he said. "It's amazing, you drive down the street and literally every second house will have some sort of Geelong supporter poster or Cats merchandise facing the street.

"In my experience, all they (the players) will talk about is the game. They won't know much about how it's built up. They'll only be focusing on their roles, who they're playing on and that's all they'll be focusing on for the week.

"The club just try to keep everything as normal as possible. It's only after that they'd let you let your hair down and get involved."

And while he's tipping the Cats to go back-to-back, Playfair has been impressed with the Hawks over the latter part of the season.

"I think Lance Franklin's pretty important and Hawthorn proved that they don't necessarily need him to play well to win," he said. "I think they've really improved over the last few weeks and they look really sharp.

"And they haven't got a lot of weaknesses, which is similar to Geelong. I'm just very excited about the contest. There are some great match-ups wherever you look."