No injuries, no excuses, no form dramas and great expectations - the Geelong machine is primed perfectly for its third-straight AFL grand final.

The atmosphere in the Cats changeroom was a mix of quiet confidence and grim determination after they demolished Collingwood by 73 points on Saturday night in their preliminary final.

Apart from the obvious grand final berth, there are two crucial outcomes of Geelong's qualifying final win over the Western Bulldogs and Saturday night's outstanding performance.

They have ensured four key players - Steve Johnson, Brad Ottens, Paul Chapman and Max Rooke - are over their injuries and match-fit for the grand final.

There are also no longer any queries about Geelong's form as they prepare for the clash of the 2009 titans.

Only a few games into this season, it was clear that minor premiers St Kilda and the second-placed Cats would dominate this year.

Geelong suffered their first loss of 2009 in the round-14 blockbuster against the Saints, when a late Michael Gardiner goal sealed the result.

St Kilda jumped the Cats in the first term and Geelong coach Mark Thompson said they had learnt some crucial lessons.

"It wasn't anything St Kilda did - they had this zone thing that they do and we spoke about it a lot, trying to work through it," Thompson said.

"In the end, it may have spooked our players a little bit.

"We ended up getting through it that day, but at the start we made some horrendous blues and gave the ball straight back to St Kilda and they were good enough to get it off us.

"You'd hope that wouldn't happen and we've learnt from that ... we probably kicked it when we should have handballed it and handballed when we should have kicked it at the start last time."

Thompson is also acutely aware that the Cats must be ready for anything.

Asked about how Geelong may have changed since round 14, he turned the topic to how well the Bulldogs controlled play early in Friday night's preliminary final against the Saints.

The fact that St Kilda struggled to beat the 'Dogs means little - Geelong only edged past Collingwood by a kick two years ago, then crushed Port Adelaide a week later in the grand final.

But the manner of the Bulldogs' game style, their ability to keep the well-drilled Saints unsteady, would have had Thompson and St Kilda counterpart Ross Lyon poring over the match video.

"The game has changed a bit - two years ago, you could just play fast all the time and now, a perfect example was how the Bulldogs (went) early, they didn't play fast," Thompson said.

"They changed the way they played against St Kilda because you need to be very flexible."

One other lesson from the last week is that if the Saints were thinking about playing mind games with Geelong, which would be out of character, they should not bother.

Magpies coach Mick Malthouse tried to put the heat on Thompson and the Cats with some pointed comments in a newspaper column, much like Port coach Mark Williams was talking up the pressure on Geelong before the 2007 grand final.

It just does not work with Geelong.

"We didn't talk about it at all at club level, we didn't buy into it," Thompson said.

"If I had thrown it to my players, they would have looked at me, because it's so rare that we do that stuff, and said 'what are you talking about? just tell us exactly how you want us to play'.

'I'm not sure whether that's a big motivation of why we play well today or in that grand final, in 2007, but certainly we don't play those games."

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