PRELIMINARY finals are no longer as predictable as they once were.
Finishing in the top four and winning a qualifying final used to be seen as the most certain passage to a Grand Final and, eventually, the ultimate prize.
But the introduction of the pre-finals bye and the extraordinary evenness of the competition has made preliminary finals a bigger uncertainty than ever before.
Preliminary finals between 2000 (when the current finals format was introduced) and 2015 were largely predictable. The winners of the qualifying finals won 28 of the 32 prelims in that period, a win rate of 87.5 per cent.
But the introduction of the pre-finals bye in 2016 has flipped the script, with qualifying final winners successful in nine of 16 prelims since then, a win rate of just 56.25 per cent.
That includes 2021, when there was no pre-finals bye and the week off was instead shifted to the week before the Grand Final. The prelim results were split that year anyway, as Melbourne (qualifying final winner) and the Western Bulldogs (semi-final winner) met in the decider.
Between 2016 and 2021, the ledger had actually tipped in favour of the winner coming the 'hard way', via a semi-final, with seven of 12 semi-final winners also winning a prelim the week after. But 2022 and 2023 saw both qualifying final winners reach the Grand Final.
The pre-finals bye has given teams a chance to reset before September, while also providing players a chance to recharge and recover from injury prior to the business end of the season.
That bye and finals on a Thursday night has also meant that teams winning their qualifying final have more time off than they had previously. This week, the Swans will host the Power at the SCG 13 days after their thrilling win over Greater Western Sydney, while Geelong will take on the Lions at the MCG 16 days after beating Port Adelaide.
The Cats' 16 days is the longest break between a qualifying final and preliminary final of any team since the introduction of the pre-finals bye. By the time they run out onto the MCG on Saturday evening, they would have played just once in 29 days.
Prelims are no longer as predictable as they once were, but the difficulty of winning the flag after finishing outside the top four remains, which is bad news for Brisbane as it seeks to make history in the next fortnight.
No team made a Grand Final from outside the top four between 2000 and 2015, before the Western Bulldogs' remarkable run from seventh to the flag in 2016.
Another two sides – Greater Western Sydney (2019) and the Bulldogs (2021) – made the decider from outside the top four since then, but both lost the Grand Final.
While history is against the Lions, what was once close to a sure thing - reaching a Grand Final after winning a qualifying final - is no longer the case.
After a remarkable season and an unpredictable finals series so far, the Power and Lions will both be a red-hot chance this weekend.
