Geelong captain Cameron Ling says emerging trio Daniel Menzel, Allen Christensen and Mitch Duncan will play important roles in the club's finals campaign.
The triumvirate sealed their berths for Friday night's qualifying final with Hawthorn at the MCG by combining for 61 possessions and nine goals in the Cats' demolition job of Collingwood.
Menzel booted a game-high five goals, while Christensen kicked three goals in an 18-possession game and Duncan gathered 26 touches, something which caught the eye of Ling.
"Those three guys in particular have been fantastic all year," Ling said.
"Scotty (coach Chris Scott) said at the start of the year he was going to give players opportunities provided they deserved it."
"Those guys deserved it, came in and really played a fantastic role, they've been trained up and played at a level that will hopefully allow them to contribute in finals."
Ling acknowledged the presence of some young talent had provided energy into Geelong's playing group, but added that the team's seasoned heads are eagerly anticipating yet another finals campaign.
"The young guys are excited and love being out there, but I think there's a fair bit of enthusiasm from the whole group," Ling said.
"If you don't get excited about playing this time of the year, you're not really human."
"It's an exciting time of the year and good to be a part of it, Friday night is going to be a really good game of footy against a quality footy team, the whole group's excited to be part of that."
Ling, who is about to embark on his seventh finals campaign, declared the club's 19-3 win-loss record will be just history after the ball is bounced on Friday night.
"We've put ourselves into a good position to have a crack at it," Ling said.
"We've got to make sure we turn up and do our best possible job on Friday night, we can't look any further beyond that, we can't look back at all."
In team news, veteran forward Cameron Mooney, livewire Mathew Stokes and defender Tom Lonergan are all pushing for a return to the senior ranks after missing the win over the Magpies.
Coach Scott offered the three hope of a recall by saying he wasn't afraid of changing a winning side, even one coming off a 96-point success.
"I don't think you need to keep the team the same way, I don't think making changes affects you negatively," Scott said.
"If it did, we would have done that (pick an unchanged side) more this year, we'll just pick the best 22 we think can get the job done on Friday night."