EXCITING Hawthorn youngster Cyril Rioli is winning his battle with a persistent groin injury and could return to the Hawks' line-up to face Geelong on Easter Monday.

Rioli's pre-season has been severely hampered by the nagging injury but teammate Luke Hodge revealed the livewire forward had put a strong case for selection for the much-anticipated clash.

"We're getting back Chance Bateman and Buddy (Franklin from suspension) and hopefully Cyril this week," Hodge said at the MCG on Wednesday.

"He trained today and he looked pretty good so hopefully he gets through on Friday and we'll see him on Monday."

Hodge also revealed the Hawks have fined Josh Gibson an undisclosed amount after the former North Melbourne defender broke curfew last weekend.

"Gibbo came and spoke to us on Monday and said that he'd done the wrong thing," he said.

"We spoke about it and put [our position] to the board, they backed our decision and we'll just move on from there.

"We handled it internally and from Monday we've been focusing on Geelong."

Hawthorn impressed in its first-up win against Melbourne with the forward-line pressure applied by Rhan Hooper and Campbell Brown, in particular, drawing the praise of Hodge.

The reigning premiers are coming off an equally impressive win and Hodge agreed they presented a very different challenge than the rebuilding Demons.   

"You know what to expect with Geelong. They've been the best team in the competition over the last three years - they're always going to play well, play as a side and move the ball quick," he said.

"You always build yourself up for games against Geelong. We've always had close games over the last four or five, and the last three years they've been the benchmark of the competition so it's going to be a big challenge.

"Our next three weeks is going to show us [where we are]. We've Geelong, Collingwood then the Bulldogs and there's probably no three bigger teams with the form they're playing with at the moment. It's going to be a big test for us."