Sydney veteran Ryan O’Keefe is confident the lure of an AFL grand final berth will soon have his teammates forgetting about any soreness they’re carrying.

The Swans will be missing a host of their best players in Saturday night’s preliminary final against Fremantle at Patersons Stadium.

Adam Goodes (knee), Rhyce Shaw (knee), Kurt Tippett (knee), Tom Mitchell (ankle) and Sam Reid (quad) are all absent through injury, while Lewis Jetta, Ben McGlynn and Gary Rohan are a tad underdone following their own recent injury layoffs.

Early injuries to Tippett and Mitchell in last week’s win over Carlton took their toll on the rest of Sydney’s side, with players forced to stay on the field longer than normal.

In contrast, Fremantle have had the benefit of a week off following their qualifying final win over Geelong.

Sydney’s form has been hit-and-miss of late, with the reigning premiers dropping four of their past six matches.

But their chances of victory against Fremantle were given a slight boost when they were able to secure first-class seats for their flight to Perth on Wednesday.

O’Keefe said the extra leg room had helped players recover, and was confident any sore spots would be quickly forgotten in such a high-stakes game.

“I don’t think any player that’s playing at this time of year hasn’t got some sort of soreness or anything like that,” O’Keefe said on Thursday.

“But it’s the best time of year to be playing, so everyone’s pumped and looking forward to it.

“It’s exciting. Playing in a prelim final is one game away from the big show.

“We’ll freshen up this week. The boys have recovered well.”

O’Keefe rolled his ankle in the dying seconds of last week’s 24-point win over Carlton.

But the 32-year-old declared he had fully recovered from the injury.

“It’s fine – perfect,” O’Keefe said before training on Thursday.

“I was just a bit annoyed (because) it was the last 10 seconds of the game.

“But I pulled up pretty well.

“I knew it was nothing too bad.”