Joel Selwood has reflected on last year's preliminary final loss to the Sydney Swans, describing the result as one of the worst of his career.

The 28-year-old, who is sitting out the Cats' first JLT Series match against Hawthorn in Launceston, made the comments in a Herald Sun feature written by experienced sportswriter Glenn McFarlane.

“We know what happened,” Selwood said of the 37-point loss to the Swans. “We didn’t get it right. We had a bad day.

"To be honest, this is the only time I will talk about it. I am happy to do the story once, but I won’t speak about it (again).

“We got a lot of things wrong. It was (our) set-up; it was a little bit of prep stuff that we would change now.

"In the moment, we probably thought we were going into the game fresh.

“We expected to play well from the word go, like we do every time. But to take 40 minutes to start the game the way we did (was very disappointing).

"We won the next 70 minutes, where we won a lot of the ball, and won a lot of the inside 50s, even if we weren’t using it well.

“But the game was gone.”

Selwood has enjoyed plenty of success in his career, winning three premierships.

But the defeat at the hands of the Swans reminded him of another big match that he would rather forget.

“It probably hurt the most ... since that Hawthorn one [in the 2008 Grand Final],” he said.

“It was a similar case in that game. We got it wrong when we shouldn’t have got it wrong and it has happened twice now in big games.

"They are probably the wrong sort of games to get it wrong in, but I have played almost 230 games, and I have been on the other side of it, too.”

Selwood has played down claims that Geelong is a team that relies far to heavily on him and Patrick Dangerfield.

“(That talk) has never had much of an impact on me," he said. "I have a lot more belief in my teammates than the outside world does.

“I have to make sure those guys (his teammates) know that I have much more respect for them (than others do). I believe in them a lot more.

"When I take the field, I am going to try and make them the best footballers they can be, and they have to repay me and help make me the best footballer that I can possibly be."