COLLINGWOOD coach Mick Malthouse was content with what his side got out of its 80-point defeat of a depleted Fremantle on Friday night, but was quick to turn his focus to next week's clash with Geelong to round out the home-and-away season.

Collingwood is now guaranteed the minor premiership for the second straight season heading into next Friday night's clash with the second-placed Cats, and while there is nothing to gain in terms of ladder positions, both sides will be looking for an edge on their opposition.

Malthouse will look to field a team closer to his preferred 22 next week, with Luke Ball, Chris Tarrant and Sharrod Wellingham likely to return.

With the suspended Heath Shaw due back for the first week of the finals and captain Nick Maxwell for whenever Collingwood's second final is, there will be some players unlucky to miss out. Malthouse intimated on Friday that he will more than likely lean towards experience.

"I think those (younger) boys have played the role that we intended. Are they in contention for some of the bigger games? Of course they are, but we would like to think that we have a bit more mature side going into the next few weeks," Malthouse said.

"I hope that Ball will play next week, I hope that Tarrant plays next week, Wellingham wouldn’t be far off I don’t think given he was pretty close this week, and then we've got Maxwell and Shaw. It's a balancing act, put it that way, but they are experienced players so we just have to be careful. I don’t know if we can bring them all back."

There was plenty for Malthouse to like in Friday's runaway win over Fremantle, with Scott Pendlebury, Dane Swan, Dayne Beams, Alan Didak, Dale Thomas and Ben Johnson dominant, Ben Reid, Tyson Goldsack and Harry O'Brien outstanding in defence, and Andrew Krakouer and Travis Cloke kicking four goals apiece.

Despite the comfortable win, the Collingwood coach couldn’t help but feel some sympathy for the injury-plagued Fremantle, who lost Garrick Ibbotson (shoulder) and Peter Faulks (fractured cheekbone and broken jaw) during the game to add to a mounting injury toll.

"We're under no illusion whatsoever that Fremantle were decimated by injuries and got further on the night," he said.

"We understand that and I don’t think any coach or person likes to see injuries, and in particular when you see 'Ibbo' go down.

"I coached him over in Ireland, and he's a lovely young bloke. Then for Faulks to have that injury as well, no one likes that. What it does is that makes an already depleted side more depleted. Under those circumstances we won and are happy to come away with what is a fairly clean sheet of players, but I really feel for Mark (Harvey).

"I don’t think it was a game where we were in fair nick and playing a side who would have really challenged us with a full side, but you can only do what you can do. I'm not bemoaning the fact that we won, but to see how many good players they had out is astounding, quite frankly."