THE LAST time Geelong and Hawthorn faced off in a grand final, in 1989, Hawthorn snuck home in a shootout.

Sure, Cat Gary Ablett senior kicked nine and won the Norm Smith Medal and Hawk Robert Dipierdomenico played with a punctured lung, but it's Mark Yeates' early bump on Dermott Brereton that still gets people talking.

Yeates, who played 154 games for Geelong from 1980 to 1990, is hoping for another close match this weekend, but a different result.

"I've been waiting for this game for a long time," he told Melbourne radio station SEN.

"Look, I think that if you're going to play in a grand final, you have to play to win it, you shouldn't worry about consequences and I think that it will be a tough game.

"I really do hope that both teams get fully into it physically.

"I hope Saturday's is good, and we come out on top and beat them."

Last year's triumph ended a drought for the Cats that had stood since 1963 and Yeates hopes the role reversal is a good omen.

"This Saturday, if you look at it, we are going for back-to-back and Hawks were going for back to back [in 1989].

"They are the up-and-comers and we were the up-and-comers, so it's got all the ingredients.

"I hope the same result comes out though – we beat them."

Reflecting on that bump, Yeates revealed that coach Malcolm Blight told him he had three minutes to hit Brereton or he would be off the ground.

"The instruction was given the day before at our team meeting – towards the end of the meeting – that he was worried about Dermott running through and cleaning up one of our blokes in the middle, when he gave me the job," Yeates said.

"He told me how to do it, hip-and-shoulder.

"He inhibited me a bit because he told me to do it fairly and keep my elbow into my side, hip-and-shoulder and spilt him up the middle.

"And that's what I had to do, and to that effect I guess he didn't hurt any of our blokes.

"Psychologically, when he kicked those couple of goals [it] didn't do us any good."