Geelong coach Mark Thompson admits his team's momentum could be slowed by a mid-season holiday ahead of their keenly anticipated AFL clash with St Kilda.

With the Cats not playing next weekend, Thompson will give the players five days off after they complete their review on Monday of Saturday night's 71-point thrashing of Essendon.

The 23.16 (154) to 12.11 (83) victory at Etihad Stadium was the Cats' seventh straight win, with an average margin of 63 points during that streak.

Thompson said while the players deserved the break, it would have been nice to keep their form running uninterrupted, rather than wait until Friday week to play the Saints in the grand final rematch.

"Sometimes it's good just to keep going," Thompson said.

"I think we're due for a break, we're going to look after ourselves and we're really looking forward to it.

"But sometimes a week off can just break your momentum too.

"So we've just got to be careful we do enough training before we play the Saints."

The extra time will benefit the Cats' playing stocks, with stars Joel Corey, Matthew Scarlett and Cameron Mooney all set to return from injury against St Kilda.

Thompson said Corey, out since round four with a knee injury, had floated the idea of returning through the VFL, but he wanted to bring him straight into the seniors.

It is a clash the Cats are eagerly awaiting, after two epic contests last season - a one-goal St Kilda win in round 14 and Geelong's 12-point grand final victory.

"Our two matches last year were probably close to being the two best matches that we've played in, awesome games of footy."

The Bombers also face a big match, against Hawthorn on Friday night.

It will be critically important to their finals chances and coach Matthew Knights said they needed to respond, after being down in most areas of their game against the Cats.

But he acknowledged the opposition deserved credit for that, saying Geelong remained every bit the force that has won two flags from the past three grand finals.

"If anything they seem to be improving ... they're the most impressive team by far this season I've seen," he said.

One bright spot for Essendon was a four-goal haul to young key forward Michael Hurley, a day after a court fined him $10,000 and put him on a two-year good behaviour bond over assault charges stemming from last September.

"It was a really pleasing performance ... I was really rapt with the way he played, considering he's had a rough 24 hours," Knights said.

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