While Geelong coach Mark Thompson has maintained his dignity and poise in the lead-up to Saturday's preliminary final, the same cannot be said of his Collingwood counterpart Mick Malthouse who has indulged in the puerile mind games so beloved of underdogs at this time of year.

Malthouse started the psychological warfare in his column in The Australian last Saturday - before the Pies had beaten Adelaide that night - when he made the pointed and personal observation that Thompson and the Cats were under ‘excruciating' pressure to win this year's premiership.

"The Cats are feeling the heat of being expected to deliver a little more from three great years of football," Malthouse wrote. "Coaches and players are well aware of this, and there's perspiration showing. It's hot on that tin roof. The weight Geelong is carrying is excruciating.

"Geelong will be just another good side if it doesn't win this year. That's a massive pressure to take into a final."

Of his Geelong counterpart, Malthouse wrote: "If I am reading it right, I think ‘Bomber' Thompson is showing that pressure . . . I think he knows as most people do that this is the year the Cats really have to strike."

It was an extraordinarily ham-fisted attempt to unsettle Geelong and quite unlike Malthouse who hates to give the opposition any ammunition that might rev them up. Now Thompson and his Cats will have one more reason to shove those comments down Malthouse's throat - a bit like Serena Williams with the tennis ball and the US Open lineswoman.

The Western Bulldogs gave the perfect riposte on Friday night to an opponent - Brisbane - it believed had resorted to mind games in the lead-up to their semi-final. By giving them a nice old flogging.

Afterwards, Bulldogs coach Rodney Eade took a backhanded swipe at the Lions and coach Michael Voss over their attempts to try and unsettle the Dogs. From Voss down, Brisbane spent last week saying that all the pressure was on the Bulldogs in the semi-final because they confronted the demons of a straight-sets exit from the finals.

But Eade said attempts to transfer the pressure to the Bulldogs had failed. "As soon as Brisbane started saying that, I knew we'd win," he said after the Bulldogs' handsome 51-point victory.

Eade said he had no intention of using similar tactics in Friday night's preliminary final against premiership favourite St Kilda. "Is the pressure on St Kilda this week? No, that's a cop-out. If you start saying the pressure's on the opposition, that's a crutch for you, and it means you expect to lose. We expect to win. We're going in there against St Kilda expecting to win."

There's a lesson in there somewhere for you, Mick. Stick to making comments about your players and your club. Leave the amateur psychology, and ridiculous attempts to get into the heads of your opponents, to others. They can only come back to haunt you.