Geelong legend Jimmy Bartel remains frustrated with the AFL’s current pre-finals bye setup after Tom Stewart was ruled out of Friday night’s Preliminary Final with a concussion.

Stewart will now miss next Saturday’s Grand Final as a result of the AFL’s concussion protocols.

Bartel says the AFL in recent years have been lucky to avoid similar incidents, and now a key fixturing change must be made.

Press PLAY to hear Jimmy Bartel’s FULL comments on the pre-finals bye

“It’s been a frustration of mine that we don’t have the bye before the Grand Final for situations like this,” he said on 3AW Football.

“We’ve just been lucky to be honest, and now it’s a star player going down. I’m not just saying this because it’s Tom Stewart, I’ve been banging on about this (for a while).”

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