Let's be frank, we've had some disappointing climaxes to the AFL season in recent times.
Of course, a Grand Final can't be expected to be the best game of the year simply because it's the most important, but tedious blowouts decided long before the final siren have become far more frequent than thrillers.
Many of us neutrals not emotionally invested in either Fremantle or Brisbane's fortunes this week will be hoping for a classic first and foremost. But at least this year even if the score is lopsided and the game drama-free, we're already guaranteed a great storyline surrounding the winner.
Whether it's Fremantle winning a first-ever premiership in the club's 31-year AFL history, or Brisbane taking out a premiership hat trick, the narrative out of Saturday's Grand Final will be compelling.
For the Dockers, a first premiership obviously is huge enough. But a win on Saturday would also symbolically be atonement for 30-odd years of underachievement then ritual disappointment since since it entered the AFL in 1995.
Thirty-two seasons is a long apprenticeship. And for much of it, Fremantle's existence has seemed defined more by what hasn't happened than what has.
There were the chaotic early years, the recruiting blunders, the two-win season of 2001 and the wait until 2003 merely to play a final. Even when the Dockers finally became a genuine force, the ultimate prize remained tantalisingly beyond reach.
The closest they came, of course, was 2013. Ross Lyon's team travelled to Melbourne having already produced one of the great interstate finals wins against Geelong at Kardinia Park, only for nerves and wastefulness in front of goal to prove ruinous against Hawthorn. Fremantle kicked 8.14, lost by 15 points and watched the Hawks begin a premiership hat trick.
There have been other teases. Fremantle finished on top of the ladder in 2015 but fell to Hawthorn in a home preliminary final.
The bottom fell out of the Lyon-led set-up immediately, the Dockers crashing spectacularly to just four wins and 16th spot as another premiership window closed. Another generation moved on. And until now, 2013 remained the club's solitary appearance on Grand Final day.
Which is what makes this opportunity so enormous. And the potential achievement even more significant. This team has already done plenty the hard way. It finished the home-and-away season on top, lost its qualifying final, then had to fight its way back through September.
Then at the SCG in the preliminary final, its season appeared to be disappearing altogether, Fremantle trailing Sydney at every change and by 21 points at three-quarter time before producing a remarkable last-quarter escape. Now, there's only one piece of history left to rewrite.
And if Fremantle's story is about finally achieving something it never has, Brisbane's is almost the exact opposite - about doing something so rare that it would place this Lions team among the greatest of the modern era.
Because a third successive premiership wouldn't simply confirm Brisbane's dominance. It would inevitably invite comparison with the club's own celebrated teams of 2001-03. We would be discussing a dynasty worthy of comparison with the greatest of the modern era, including one wearing precisely the same jumper a quarter of a century ago.
Only Hawthorn in 2013-15 has achieved that feat since the original Lions. Brisbane now has the opportunity to do it twice within 25 years, which really is rarified air. While six clubs in VFL/AFL history have won three in a row, Melbourne (1939-40-41 and 1955-56-57) is the only club to do it twice.
The parallels between the two Brisbane eras are almost eerie.
Leigh Matthews' Brisbane played in four consecutive Grand Finals from 2001-04 and won three successive premierships. Chris Fagan's Lions are now appearing in their fourth Grand Final in succession and, having beaten Sydney in 2024 and Geelong last year, can make it three flags in a row.
And, just like Matthews' champions, this Brisbane team has had to keep travelling to Melbourne and winning the biggest game of all on somebody else's turf, not once in those three years having finished on top of the ladder.
There is even an Ashcroft in both stories, Marcus a member of all three premiership teams in 2001-03, son Will now attempting to complete his own hat-trick. Already a dual Norm Smith medallist, Will loves the 'G, where StatMate says he's kicked a goal in five straight games.
Perhaps the most impressive comparison, though, is not personnel but resilience.
The old Lions weren't simply brilliant. By 2003 they were battered physically, yet somehow kept finding another level when September demanded it. The current version has acquired much the same quality.
It lost the 2023 Grand Final agonisingly to Collingwood, responded by winning the next two premierships, the first coming from fifth, the second playing every week of September, and has now survived another season of injuries, personnel changes and pressure to get back again.
Four consecutive Grand Finals in an 18-team competition, with equalisation designed specifically to prevent sustained dominance, is an extraordinary achievement in itself. Winning three of them consecutively would put this Brisbane team somewhere else altogether.
And perhaps that is the beauty of Saturday, regardless of whether we end up getting a cliffhanger, or an anti-climax.
Fremantle can make history it has spent 32 years chasing. And Brisbane can repeat history most assumed we would never see from the Lions again.
You can read more of Rohan Connolly's work at FOOTYOLOGY.