GEELONG defender Mark Blicavs has backed in the club’s ruck stocks to deal with in-form big man Max Gawn.

Blicavs said he was confident any combination of Rhys Stanley, Zac Smith and Ryan Abbott could do a good job on the current leader of the AFLCA Champion Player of the Year award.

“If he comes down (forward) I’d be happy to take him. I think he’ll ruck quite a bit of it and I think Rhys has done quite a good job of it in the last month or so,” Blicavs said.

“Zac Smith and Ryan Abbott have been playing some really good VFL footy as well.  It could be one of them, it could be a number, I don’t think the coaches have worked that out yet. Whoever that is we’ll back them in to do a good job.”

Gawn has been in phenomenal touch around the stoppages, with over half of his 41 hit-outs to the advantage of a teammate against the Bulldogs last week.

The Melbourne ruckman broke the game open with a run of spectacular taps to Angus Brayshaw and Clayton Oliver in the third term.

Blicavs’ fellow backman Zach Tuohy said the defensive unit had taken note of the dominant display.

“We watched some of it as a backline because as you can imagine, it all ends up in Melbourne’s forward line,” Tuohy said.

“It was absolutely ridiculous some of the things he was doing, it was incredible.

“You just have the try and nullify him once he gets his hands on it – you have to accept that a player of his quality is going to get his hand to the ball.”