GEELONG coach Chris Scott refuses to be drawn on past history, but has labelled gamechanger Gary Rohan's performance as "gratifying".
Rohan has a shaky record in finals, but saluted in style in the Cats' six-point win over Collingwood, booting three and setting up Max Holmes' matchwinner.
"I'd prefer just to speak about today and the moment, and not get drawn into the past. I said during the week, I think it's a better way to live your life, looking forward," Scott said.
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"Look, it is gratifying, I don't mind saying that. We are really clear on what he can bring to our team and the way we play. He's absolutely an energy giver, his teammates love playing with him and I'm just really proud of him today."
Jake Kolodjashnij was subbed off with a knee injury, having battled through till the end of the second term.
"I'm not really sure (how he is). It was a knee, he wanted to try it to see if he could go. When it became clear to our eyes that he couldn't really do it – it was a brave effort because he wanted to push through, but it was also the right thing and the courageous thing for him to do to put his hand up and say that's it," Scott said.
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"I'm not sure what the outlook is though. We'll wait and see."
Geelong shook off its poor first-week-of-finals record, winning its first qualifying or elimination final since 2016, having lost the fixture for the past six years.
"I'll probably refer back to my previous answer. The first bit is we try to live in the moment. It's kind of that idea that you never step in the same river twice. I get the question, and I appreciate it, but I'm not going to refer back to previous years," Scott said.
"But I can answer your question, I guess. The logical response is, did we refer back to it? Refer to answer one, of course not. Sorry, that was defensive, now I don't know what to do with my hands."
Geelong has an embarrassment of riches in the midfield, so much so that Brandon Parfitt was dropped for the qualifying final, a decision that appeared to still baffle Scott despite the fact his match committee made it.
"It was almost impossibly difficult. It makes no sense. If you'd have asked me 10 weeks ago, I would have said he was one of our best players," he said.
"I've said it through the year, our team is rarely, if ever, a referendum on what we think our best team is. Into the future, at any given moment we have a set of priorities, and it doesn't always mean – one of the quirks of our game is you need role players, and you need a certain mix.
"Sometimes, a better player misses out because the role isn't quite there for them. We stressed during the week, and it's the same for Menegola as well, this is the team we picked for this week and then we'll start again and look at it all over again in two weeks' time."
In years gone by, something would have been horribly wrong if both Joel Selwood and Patrick Dangerfield started the quarter on the bench, but that's just what happened against the Pies until the final term, when Selwood started in the middle.
"We thought it was the best thing to start the game (that way) for a variety of reasons. The message is, we think we have a deep midfield. We've talked about it for a while, I think publicly, we have every intention of using that," Scott said.
"That's one way to do it, but it's always, from there, summing up the game. And I'm sure I'll look back at it and think, 'oh, I should have had him in at that time, and not him', and I do that after every game.
"So I'm certainly not saying that's the reason we won the game, but there's serious thought and method that goes into it, not just throw the magnets up in the air."
