MELBOURNE'S agonisingly long finals drought will result in co-captain Nathan Jones setting an unflattering League record.

When Jones leads the Demons in their elimination final against Geelong at the MCG on Friday night, he will have endured a 12-year break between finals – the longest in League history.

Jones' dozen-year gap has eclipsed the previous record of 11, shared by three stars of long ago – Essendon's champion ruckman/defender Fred Baring, who won back-to-back flags in 1911-12 and again in 1923-24; Geelong and Melbourne rover George Haines, and Fitzroy's 1944 premiership player Maurie Hearn.

It's a remarkable anomaly given Jones' career got away to such a promising start on the finals front.

When he was 18 in his debut season in 2006, two of Jones' first eight AFL games were finals: a come-from-behind 18-point win over St Kilda in an elimination final and a 28-point semi-final loss to Fremantle in Perth.

Since then, the three-time club champion has played a further 253 games – none of them finals.

In that time, the Dees have had eight coaches and generally occupied the lower rungs of the ladder.

The frustration was magnified last year when the Demons were in the top eight for 14 rounds but lost their last round game to 13th-placed Collingwood and missed the finals by 0.49 per cent.

The Dees will concede a huge discrepancy in finals experience to the Cats, who boast September regulars such as skipper Joel Selwood (26 finals), Harry Taylor (23) and Tom Hawkins (19), along with Gary Ablett junior (17), who will play his first final since 2010 after seven barren years with Gold Coast.

Meanwhile, from Melbourne's final-round team that defeated Greater Western Sydney, just three other Demons have played finals: Jordan Lewis amassed 23 with Hawthorn, while Michael Hibberd and Jake Melksham made single September appearances with Essendon.

Dees key forward Tom McDonald (143 games) and small defender Neville Jetta (138) will also be relieved that the Demons' drought is over.

Over in Perth, former Demon high-flyer Jeremy Howe will return to the Collingwood side to play his first final after 158 games (100 with Melbourne), while fellow Demon-turned-Magpie Lynden Dunn remains sidelined on 196 games (165 with Melbourne) – the most without a final appearance among current players, and sixth in history.

Longest gap between finals

Supplied by AFL statistics and history consultant Col Hutchinson