Enemy Lines: Stokes O.K. to play
Matthew Stokes should suit up for the Cats on Sunday against the Power as PortAdelaideFC.com.au goes behind enemy lines.
GEELONG senior coach Chris Scott is adamant that Cats forward Mathew Stokes will return to form this weekend despite a quiet game against Sydney last Friday night.
Scott has doused talk of Stokes having carried a hamstring injury into the clash against the Swans, despite him having experienced problems against Carlton, and expects a return to form against the Power on Sunday.
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But converse to the possibility of injury, Scott says that poor form was the reason for Stokes below standard performance against the red and whites.
"He's not carrying an injury," said Stokes.
"He wasn't great on the weekend … but we rated him in our top eight players in the Carlton game, so we didn't have too many problems with him there."
Injuries have featured at Geelong (although somewhat less so than at Port Adelaide) in recent weeks.
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21 year old Josh Cowan is under the cloud of an Achilles injury and is at risk of being scratched from the remainder of 2012.
"It's not going great, to be honest," Scott said of Cowan's injury concerns.
"They are worrysome, those Achilles injuries; they take a long time to get better.
"It's one of those things where he can get to 90 per cent quite quickly, but he just can't get that extra 10 per cent.
Port Adelaide will be missing its entire leadership group for Sunday's clash against Geelong with captain Dom Cassisi (hip flexor), Travis Boak (foot), Jackson Trengove (finger), Hamish Hartlett (hamstring) and Jay Schulz (abdomen) all ruled out from the game.