The West Coast Eagles are confident they can limit the impact of star Geelong on-ballers Joel Selwood and Patrick Dangerfield.

Addressing media in Perth on Monday morning, veteran defender Sam Butler spoke highly of one of the competition’s best centre-square tandems, and is looking forward to seeing them up close on Saturday afternoon at Simonds Stadium.

“They are great at winning their own ball, which is a great thing about those two and they’re great players to watch – and I enjoy watching them too,” Butler said.

“We’ll get up close and personal this week.”

A member of the 2006 premiership team, the 30-year old will be tasked with suppressing a potent Cats’ forward line and says Geelong’s level of talent across the entire 22 must be respected.

“It’s often talked about that games are won in the middle and that’ll be the case again,” Butler said.

“In saying that Geelong have got quality all over the park. They have got some good talls and some good follow-up talls. We think we’ve got a couple good ones as well, so it’s going to be a good battle inside.”

“They seem to keep bringing in good, hard-bodied players and young players that can step up into roles straight away. We are looking forward to it.”