I’ve seen at least 3 journos cite the illness that ran through the Geelong camp in the days prior to the 2021 prelim final as a reason they lost that match. It honestly makes me angry about the amount of disrespect they’ve shown towards Melbourne and how good we were that night. What annoys me most is that several Geelong players have brushed off the excuse but the media keeps bringing it up and they almost use Geelong’s 2022 form as a form of validation.
Here is another article on it written by Daniel Cherney who I consider one of the better ones out there.
The tweet accompanying this article reads “Last year, illness halted Geelong’s Grand Final hopes. 12 months on, they have made up for that misfortune “.
https://www.codesports.com.au/afl/geelong/geelong-poised-to-overcome-lingering-pain-of-last-years-83point-preliminary-final-defeat-to-melbourne/news-story/9fdd557b12b3fbed77dafcf16ed5a9e9