Defender Harry Taylor says limping out of the 2018 season in the elimination final serves as motivation for Geelong ahead of this year’s AFL finals series.

The Cats face Collingwood in Friday night’s qualifying final, a year on from slumping to a disappointing loss to Melbourne.

“I just remember leaving the game pretty shattered – as you do after finals losses,” Taylor said.

“But not a great feeling, you get into some pretty miserable times when you lose big games like that.

“But that feeling when you’re in your locker, your hands are buried in your face, it’s a pretty good motivation I think to make sure you do all your preparation as well as you can to not have that feeling too many times.”

The Cats have embraced personnel change in 2019 – with Luke Dahlhaus and Gryan Miers brought into the fold – and enter this year’s finals campaign as minor premiers.

“(We’re) just a really positive and united group,” Taylor said.

“That’s what we’ve tried to be all season, we’ve tried to face things head-on as best we can and the next big challenge is going to be against Collingwood and we’re trying to face that head on.

“We understand that finals are difficult, they’re really high intensity games but we’re trying to embrace that pressure and the big crowd, the big moments and go out and try to play as well as we can.”

Taylor has played 21 games in 2019 but the 33-year-old said he was yet to consider whether he would play on beyond this year.

“I just haven’t let my mind wander into that space just yet,” he said.

“I’ve really tried to just focus on concentrating on playing well, training well, preparing well and what happens post this season finishing, I’ll think about that once it’s all over.”