Hawthorn have declared captain Luke Hodge a definite starter for Saturday’s AFL grand final against Sydney.

Hodge has been in quarantine with a virus that forced him out of the narrow preliminary final win over Adelaide, but vice-captain Jordan Lewis said on Monday he would be fully recovered in time for the clash against the Swans.

“Absolutely, we’ve got no doubt that he’ll play,” Lewis said.

“He had the sniffles over the weekend so I’m sure a few of his Colac mates would have been getting into him for missing a game with the sniffles.

“But he looks great this morning and he’s ready to go.”

However there remains a query over defender Brent Guerra, who has been sidelined since the final round of the home and away season with a hamstring problem.

Lewis said only the coaching panel knew whether or not he was on track to play.

“It’s sort of hard to say from a player’s perspective. The coaches are paid to do what they do and they’re paid to make tough calls, so they’ll make a call when the time is necessary,” he said.

Hawthorn caused a major boilover when they defeated hot favourites Geelong to take out the flag in 2008 and were thought to be on the brink of a reign at the top.

They have not threatened a repeat until this year and Lewis believes he understands why.

“The game changes from year to year and we probably hung on to 2008 in the way we played a year too long,” he said.

“And then we changed a few things and we brought players in, some outside speed in and I think we’ve got the right mix at the moment to really challenge.”

Lewis admitted that Hawthorn had to be more ruthless against Sydney than they were in the early stages of the five-point win over the Crows.

“I think looking back on the game, that assumption is probably right,” Lewis said.

“There were a few instances early … I know one where I went back with the flight and probably didn’t mark a ball that I should have marked.

“But we’ll learn from the experience – we can only go out there this week and try and rectify that.”