STAR midfielder Simon Black says the Brisbane Lions will be out to give Chris Scott the perfect Gabba send-off against Geelong on Saturday night and, fingers crossed, snare a first finals berth since 2004.

The Lions enter the weekend in the strange situation of having to rely on Collingwood beating Adelaide on Friday night and Richmond at least drawing with St Kilda on Saturday afternoon if they are to play on into September.

But while those results remain up in the air, Black is certain of one thing – that he and his teammates will look to farewell the retiring Scott with one last win.

Scott will hang up his boots with 215 games and two premierships to his name, along with the respect of each and ever player to pull on a Bears/Lions jumper alongside him.

“There is no doubt [Scott] has had an enormous impact on this club,” Black said.

“When you think of the toughness with which he played, the presence he had and the courage he showed in going back with the flight of the ball so many times – it’s amazing.

“He’s the kind of player you always wanted out there next to you and it was unfortunate that he had the couple of years where his injuries were so bad.

“But to see him get out there last week was fantastic and actually quite emotional. Hopefully we can send him off in a good manner.”

Black admits the thought of having to cheer on other sides, including arch-rival Collingwood, is an odd one but says the Lions can only focus on matters they can control – the not insignificant task of beating minor premier Geelong.

The Cats are top-of-the-table by three games and had won 15 straight matches before going down to Port Adelaide on the last kick of the day on Sunday.

“The thing that really stands out about Geelong is how consistent they are across the board,” Black said.

“If you look at someone like Gary Ablett, he’s just an amazing player. But they’ve also got a whole bunch of players who are just getting up around the 100-game mark.

“Those guys were very good young players a couple of years ago and, before this year, they probably copped a fair bit of flack for not quite getting as far as people thought they might.

“But they’ve definitely put it all together now.”

The 2002 Brownlow Medallist believes the Lions playing group has shown what it is capable of in the second half of the home-and-away season, with five wins and a draw from nine outings since the mid-year break.

The challenge now, Black insists, is kicking on - whether that be into September or towards 2008.

“The last eight or nine weeks have been good and we had those five great weeks where we had the consecutive wins,” Black said.

“Obviously it hasn’t been a fantastic year, because we’re not assured of a finals berth. But there are a lot of positives and we’ve got a lot of footy into some young guys who are going to be really good players for us

“[Coach] Leigh [Matthews] told us, after we’d beaten Collingwood, that we had put some pressure to perform on ourselves, because we’d shown everyone what we can do.

“So we have to continue to perform and improve, either in the finals or next year.”