HAWTHORN coach Alastair Clarkson has shrugged off concerns about how his players will cope with the rough weather that has been predicted to hit Melbourne on Friday night.

The current forecast suggests that the Hawks and Geelong might have to endure rain, wind and hail when they do battle at the MCG in the second qualifying final.

"There's been some games [this year] where we've had to play in pretty scratchy conditions," Clarkson said at Waverley Park on Thursday morning.

"Two weeks in a row we played Fremantle over in the rest and then the Kangas down in Tassie.

"Both those games were in really scrubby conditions, but we've won those games and we feel our game-style can adjust well to wet conditions and our players are resilient enough to withstand those tougher-type conditions.

"If that happens to occur tomorrow night we'll be prepared for it, but we'll just have to wait and see.

"I don't think our side, and the way that we select it, will change on the basis of whether it's going to be wet or dry."

Clarkson expects all eight players that were rested from last weekend's trip to the Gold Coast - Luke Hodge, Lance Franklin, Shaun Burgoyne, Grant Birchall, Max Bailey, Brad Sewell, Jordan Lewis and Cyril Rioli - to be named in the Hawks' team on Thursday evening.

"Its going to be a little bit unique," Clarkson said.

"I wouldn't reckon there'd be too many finals sides that have had that many changes going in.

"But they were the circumstances that we were dealt - a six-day break coming off interstate travel.

"Our players have worked really hard for a long period of time to get ourselves into that position.

"We wanted to make sure that we gave some of our more senior guys a rest going into the finals.

"But we also wanted to give some guys some valuable game-time, so that if we need to go to them throughout the course of the finals we can."

Eight unlucky players will be axed from the line-up that beat the Suns, but Clarkson says they all understand the circumstances.

"The easy part was telling those eight that they were in last week," he said.

"They know it's horses for courses; they know we can't fit 30 players into 22 spots.

"It's all about the club and how the coaches can best put together a side that we think can progress us through the finals.

"We'll pick our best 22 that we think is suited to play the Geelong side. Obviously they were in outstanding form last week against Collingwood and we're going to need to be in outstanding form to knock them off."

Hawthorn has lost its past six games against Geelong, yet the contests have all been close (the greatest margin is 19 points), which means the Hawks have plenty of confidence that they can get the job done on Friday night.

"We've had really good contests against them, and at various stages we've troubled Geelong with the manner in which we play," Clarkson said.

"But they've also shown that they capable of knocking us off … so we know we need to play our best footy to get across the line."