• Four burning questions ahead of the Grand Final
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LET'S be clear about this. A Sydney Swans win on Saturday in the Grand Final will not be greeted with the same universal warm and fuzzy feelings within football that followed the club's 2005 and 2012 premierships.

In club land, there was widespread displeasure that the AFL's cost of living allowance allowed the Swans to hand-pick the two most coveted uncontracted players of the last two seasons, Kurt Tippett and Lance Franklin. Rest assured, there will be plenty of coaches and officials who will ditch their own colours for the day to keenly support Hawthorn in the Grand Final.

It is a sentiment shared by some fans, but there remains plenty to admire about the way the Swans have built the side on the brink of winning the club's sixth premiership.

Luke Parker, taken with pick no.40 in the 2010 NAB AFL Draft, delivered a sublime 26-possession performance against North. It had watchers of the preliminary final questioning the competency of the All Australian selectors, who in their wisdom left Parker out of the side.

Harry Cunningham has gone from a Greater Western Sydney reject (there have been a few of those already) to a key finals weapon for the Swans. Stephen Hill and Brent Harvey are his September scalps so far. What about Brad Hill next week?

The rapid development of Parker, Cunningham, Jake Lloyd and others is testament to the Swans' recruiting and coaching. Irrespective of the assistance from elsewhere, they know how to find footballers and teach them how to play.

And there will be some great stories if the Swans salute next Saturday.

There's Gary Rohan, the pacy midfielder who suffered a gruesome broken leg in 2012 and missed out on the flag that year. He struggled early during the qualifying final, but was electric in the preliminary final with his run and carry against North Melbourne. There were fears that the injury would batter his confidence for good, but few would begrudge him the premiership medal he was on track to achieve two years ago.

WATCH: Rohan the road runner torches North Melbourne
Another is Ben McGlynn, who also missed out in 2012. He nicked a hamstring and couldn't get himself right in time. He was a battling fringe player, and therefore expendable at Hawthorn, but he got himself super-fit, improved his disposal and is now a key member of the Swans midfield. Teammates past and present have their medallions, and he rightly would feel entitled as well.

And what of Adam Goodes? The big four (Goodes, Sam Reid, Tippett and Franklin) combined as well as they had all season and the 34-year-old looked like a gangly colt at times in the preliminary final. Expect no announcements this week, but what better way to end a magical career with a third premiership.

Cyril Rioli: yes or no?

Hawthorn stuck to its plans in the VFL Grand Final, leaving Rioli on the bench throughout the final quarter, despite Box Hill, already short-sticked because of injury, being run over by Footscray.

Disregard the stats sheet – about 10 possessions – and look at his third quarter. It was there that Rioli made his biggest impression, with two goal assists and a few minutes in the middle, and it is on that that the judgment will be made by the Hawks whether he plays in the Grand Final. He rarely appeared to go at 100 per cent, but I'm not sure that was the expectation. It was just that the VFL Grand Final offered Rioli a workout that was somewhere between a heavy training session and a comeback AFL game.

It is the biggest selection dilemma faced by the Hawks ahead of a flag decider since John Kennedy left Peter Crimmins out of the 1975 clash with North Melbourne. You wonder whether Clarkson will seek the counsel this week of Kennedy, who he admires so much.

If Rioli plays, he will demand immediate and constant attention from the Swans, ideal for Luke Breust and Paul Puopolo who could break off the leash a bit. But will it throw the Hawks off balance? If they stick with Jonathan Simpkin as the sub, there is no obvious player to be omitted for Rioli. Will Langford and Taylor Duryea would have been the leading candidates a month ago but both have been in ripping touch in the finals. Matt Suckling offers drive and long kicking out of the backline. Matt Spangher provides defensive height. Maybe Rioli will be the sub, providing a spark off the bench in the final 40 minutes if the game is in the balance.

Watch the last two minutes of Saturday's preliminary final thriller
The other selection issue is the ruck. The Hawks held Ben McEvoy out of the Box Hill game altogether and it would not surprise if he comes in for Jon Ceglar in the Grand Final. McEvoy has great endurance and will be able to run the game out well, leaving David Hale more time in the forward line to stretch the Swans defence. McEvoy worked Mike Pyke over in the round 18 game between the clubs at the MCG, a key reason why the Hawks stormed back and won that game.

He is also really proficient at dropping back into space and can get to aerial contests in the defensive 50, which is really important against a side loaded with so much tall timber.

Clarkson has made clear all year that he has no best 22. He picks his side according to what the opposition offers. Ceglar's mobility works well against teams like Geelong, Fremantle and Port, but against the bigger and taller bodies of the Swans, it is McEvoy who might prove more effective.

Can Franklin play his part in a September shootout?

And now to the Bud.

This is the over-arching story of the week and ensures that tickets to this particular Grand Final will be harder than ever to source.

Franklin is in imperious form - 23 possessions, 11 marks and five goals represented a wonderful return against North in the preliminary final and was regarded by many as his most complete game of the season. Only in his all-conquering 2008 season with the Hawks might he have been better than this year.

WATCH: Lance Franklin's game-breaking performance against the Roos
He has peppered the scoreboard against his former club this year, with 5.12 in his two outings to date. The Swans won the first one, by 21 points at ANZ Stadium in round eight, while 10 rounds later, the Hawks got home by 10 points in one of the games of the year.

But the biggest issue for Franklin coming in is his spotty Grand Final record. He kicked two goals in the 2008 Grand Final while playing almost as a decoy to keep Matthew Scarlett out of the play and just one last year as part of Alastair Clarkson's plan to make the Hawks less reliant on their superstar.

His best Grand Final might have been 2012 when he singlehandedly brought the Hawks back into a game that appeared lost with a dynamic third quarter. He finished with 3.4 that afternoon. Reverse that and the Hawks win and he may have won the Norm Smith Medal.

Should the Swans win, he will become just the third player to play in consecutive premierships with different clubs. Jim Martin did it with Essendon in 1912 and Fitzroy the following year, while Tom Fitzmaurice walked out of Essendon in disgust at the end of 1924 amid suggestions some of his teammates 'played dead' in the Championship of Victoria clash with Footscray that year. Fitzmaurice was fortunate enough to lob at Geelong for that club's first premiership the following year.

Franklin left Hawthorn on more amicable terms. The Hawks were shocked that he joined the Swans, not the Giants as expected, and were blown away by the magnitude of the nine-year deal, but he meant a great deal to the Hawks, is still spoken of by them in fond terms, and when Franklin does talk about his former club, he only says good things.

At the other end of the MCG on Saturday will be Jarryd Roughead. A bit like Franklin, a dominating Grand Final is missing from his CV but he was brilliant in the preliminary final with six goals, the highest-ever preliminary final return by a Hawthorn player. He and Franklin are best mates and the All-Australian key forwards. How good would a shoot-out between them be in the Grand Final?

WATCH: Roughy runs riot against the Power

QUESTION TIME

Surely there are some Hawthorn storylines to consider?
How about this one: For all the talk about the three former Hawks in the Swans line-up on Saturday, what also warrants a mention is that there are four Hawks – Breust, Isaac Smith, Suckling and Langford – who hail from New South Wales and were recruited by the Hawks from under the noses of the Swans. Add Simpkin, originally from Colac but like Breust, also a former Swans reserves player, and that makes it five.

Langford is the fascinating one. His last two months have been elite both as a run-with player but with some handy offensive work as well. He and Luke Hodge were Hawthorn's two best players against Port Adelaide and the difficult decision to select him ahead of Brad Sewell paid dividends. Having been tormented by Kennedy since 2010, finally Hawks are reaping some joy from the son of a former champ.

As for Hodge, it will be all about the team, but let's hope that in the hurly-burly of Grand Final week that his 250th game milestone will receive the appropriate recognition. His smother of Brad Ebert inside the final minute might on Saturday just have saved the game for his side.

And finally there is coaching immortality. John Kennedy Snr and Allan Jeans are spoken about in hushed tones at Hawthorn; both are three-time premiership coaches. A win on Saturday and Clarkson joins them.

What are the off-season priorities for North Melbourne?
The Kangaroos aimed high to grab Nick Dal Santo from St Kilda this time last year to address what was seen as a glaring need in the midfield, and they need to be similarly bold at the trade table this time around. They can't be lulled into thinking that a Grand Final berth is just around the corner, as have so many beaten preliminary finalists in recent times.

North has been linked to the creative Bulldogs midfielder Shaun Higgins, but the way key defenders Scott Thompson, Nathan Grima and Michael Firrito were rag-dolled by the Swans forwards at times on Friday night (not forgetting Tom Hawkins the week before) suggests that a bit more defensive height and muscle would not go astray.

Brad Scott made the observation after the Geelong game that he now understood why Hawthorn went and grabbed Brian Lake the year before. Key defenders are a precious commodity, so the Kangaroos should try and enter the James Frawley sweepstakes if it is not too late. They should also keep chasing Jarrad Waite because in some ways, making a preliminary final with a forward line that only worked in fits and spurts, was a remarkable achievement.

Ben Brown looks good, but isn’t ready to be the focal point. Majak Daw and Robbie Tarrant carry significant question marks and Drew Petrie will be 32 at the start of next season. Waite admittedly, will be 31, but will add to the forward line while Brown, Daw and Tarrant develop.

Can go Port go one better in 2015?
They would seem a team of destiny and if anything, would have gained even more admirers on Saturday given how they pushed the Hawks to the brink. They don't die wondering, and it is that relentless run and belief in taking the game on that makes them such a great team to watch. You wonder if the result may have been different if Chad Wingard had played the first three quarters in the fashion he did the last. Like North, the Power can't sit still in the off-season. Matthew Lobbe needs help and while it might come in the form of fourth-string Hawk ruckman Luke Lowden, the player they need to go hard at is departing Bomber Paddy Ryder. While the Lions would appear the frontrunner for Ryder, the Power should give it their best shot. He could be the player who gets them into a Grand Final next year. All things being equal, I know where I'd be heading if I was Ryder.

Ashley Browne: Congrats, you're the competition winner. A snug AFL Twitter t-shirt is on its way. Both clubs are the best at sourcing and accommodating players from other clubs. The COLA has helped the Swans land Tippett and Franklin, without question, but former Hawks Kennedy and McGlynn, together with Rhyce Shaw (Collingwood) and Ted Richards (Essendon) are key weapons for the Swans and it was simply good scouting that brought them through the door. Hawthorn's strategic targeting of players from other clubs is becoming legend. The club wouldn't be in its third straight Grand Final without David Hale (North Melbourne), Brian Lake (Western Bulldogs), Josh Gibson (North Melbourne), Jack Gunston (Adelaide) and Shaun Burgoyne (Port Adelaide). The latter two, in particular, have been brilliant this year. Add Jonathan Simpkin (Geelong), Matt Spangher (Sydney Swans) and Ben McEvoy (St Kilda) to the mix and close to half the Hawthorn team for the Grand Final will have played for other clubs. Hawthorn likes to call itself 'The Destination Club' and with good reason, but the Swans also do very well in that department as well. Whatever the respective list managers Kinnear Beatson (Sydney) and Graham Wright (Hawthorn) are being paid, it isn’t enough.

AB: That we don't know. Justice Middleton's Federal Court ruling on Friday ensures this will drag on through the trade period, the summer and into next season. At this stage, it is only Ryder for certain. Courtenay Dempsey has been mentioned in dispatches. But the jungle drums are beating about others. Watch this space. AFL.com.au colleagues Nick Bowen and Peter Ryan will be all over it like a cheap suit.



AB: Brendan McCartney surely deserves another season, but he would want there to be real signs of progress in 2015. McCartney is a terrific man and a great development coach, but there are always questions as to whether these sorts of 'teaching coaches' can help their club take the next step. In 12 months time, John Worsfold and Michael Voss might decide they are ready to coach again, and both would hold great appeal. The Dogs can't hide behind 'development' for much longer and satisfactory progress for them next year would be for them to be in the finals hunt until the end of the home and away season.



AB: The AFL and the MCC planned for 70,000 so I think they would be thrilled with that crowd. The 20,000 Port fans brought noise, colour and swagger to the MCG and at timey they drowned out the 50,000 Hawthorn supporters. I would argue that only Collingwood and perhaps Richmond would have drawn more to the MCG on Saturday than the Hawks.



AB: This has been a cracking finals series. North-Essendon and Hawthorn-Geelong in week one were great matches and Port Adelaide's football to beat Richmond was top-shelf. The semi-finals were historic, with Fremantle and Geelong out in straight sets. And while the first preliminary final (Swans-North) was a yawner, the second was an epic. So while we ended up with the rightful Grand Final featuring clearly the best two teams of the year, the journey to get there was one for the ages. After a home and away season that was lacklustre at times, this finals series has been precisely what the game needed.



AB: Nothing beats a fever-pitch MCG crowd in the dying moments of a one-kick final as was the case on Saturday. I was sitting in the lower deck of the Great Southern Stand and it was raucous. So yes, Melbourne remains the heartland of the game but having said that, a trip to Adelaide Oval to watch the Power is now on the bucket list for any football supporter.