Dynasty vs immortality: This grand final is one for the ages

This year’s AFL grand final will either be won by a team raising its inaugural premiership cup, or by a side completely a three-peat.

Regardless of the outcome, history will be made on Saturday afternoon when Fremantle and Brisbane clash.

For Brisbane, they are looking to complete the trilogy. Three premierships in a row, cementing themselves as not just the best club of the 2020s, but potentially the entire 21st century to date.

This would be the Lions' second three-peat since the new millennium, winning across 2001, 2002 and 2003 with one of the most iconic teams ever assembled, helmed by coach Leigh Matthews, captain Michael Voss and stars like Jonathan Brown, Jason Akermanis and Simon Black.

This Brisbane team meanwhile is a true juggernaut. They have won 136 games since 2019, finished in the final four in six of those eight seasons and are about to enter their fourth consecutive grand final.

Only Geelong comes close, with 129 wins in that same time frame, while other perennial contenders like Collingwood (111 wins) and Sydney (107), sit almost a full season of games behind them. Fremantle has 100, including 21 this season.

Their team on paper for this grand final is as good as any we have seen over the years. They have star power on every line and continue to improve with each passing season.

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They have utilised the trade period and free agency better than any team in that span, adding stars like Lachie Neale and Charlie Cameron early days to top-end young draftees from their time at the bottom of the ladder, including Hugh McCluggage, Cam Rayner and Zac Bailey.

They then took full advantage of the draft rules, adding father-son stars Will and Levi Ashcroft, as well as Jaspa Fletcher, for next to nothing, which allowed them to also trade up for star midfielder Josh Dunkley.

Couple in some outstanding recent draft calls with Logan Morris, Darcy Wilmot and Kai Lohmann, with free agency additions Oscar Allen and Sam Draper the cherry on top, and you have the best list assembled in recent years.

This third premiership would be the culmination of a half decade of dominance, but it might also just be the beginning. Outside of Neale, who is set to join Collingwood, they will bring this core squad back, and they are young enough to contend for the rest of the 2020s.

But three flags in a row sounds a lot better than two from four grand finals and the Lions will be out to enter the history books, alongside their own counterparts from the start of the century and Hawthorn's 2013-2015 dynasty as having achieved it.

Even the Richmond and Geelong superpowers of the last few decades fell one step short of the three-peat, proving just how daunting the challenge is.

Fremantle, on the other hand, is not thinking about a dynasty, or a three-peat or anything of the sort. They are hoping to become the first Dockers to ever raise the premiership cup and cement themselves eternally in club folklore.

A team that was founded in 1994 and was treated as the butt of many jokes early days solidified into a consistent finals threat, particularly since the 2010s.

They made their first grand final in 2013, losing to Hawthorn (coincidentally becoming part of their three-peat), finished top four in 2014 and won the minor premiership in 2015 before, again, falling victim to the Hawks, this time in a prelim.

Umpire Hayden Meyer had to go and make the correct decision and stuff up a really fascinating possible storyline of revenge for the Dockers against Hawthorn, but that's a story lost to time now.

Neale, who has helped lead Brisbane through this dominant era, was Fremantle’s substitute in that 2013 grand final loss. Now, he stands on the other side as one of the key subplots of Saturday.

Getting back on track, it all came together for Fremantle this year. They were the dominant team of the home-and-away season, winning 19 games and claiming the minor premiership.

This finals series quickly loomed as their best chance to win a premiership since 2015 and arguably the best shot they’ve had in their club’s history.

And they immediately threw it into a tailspin, losing a home qualifying final to, you guessed it, Hawthorn. But they did not allow things to spiral out of control, rallying the following week to beat a finals-savvy Geelong side before travelling to Sydney and coming from five goals down late in the third quarter to save their season and book their shot at history.

It has clearly not been smooth sailing, and they have been wildly inconsistent across their last three games, but they have made it back to the final stage and now have the opportunity they worked so hard for.

This is a list built through brilliant top-end drafting with the likes of Andrew Brayshaw, Caleb Serong, Jye Amiss and Hayden Young. Grabbing a superstar like Murphy Reid outside of the top 15 recently also helps, as does finding an All-Australian key forward in Josh Treacy in the rookie draft.

The Dockers have targeted West Australian stars in the trade period and landed them. Shai Bolton from Richmond, Luke Jackson from Melbourne and Jordan Clark from Geelong, three who have made a massive difference, while Mason Cox, Oscar McDonald and Patrick Voss off the scrap heap have helped get them this far.

Couple a powerful list of match-winning offensive stars with the best home ground advantage in the competition, and you had a recipe to dominate the regular season.

All that’s left to do is achieve what club legends like Matthew Pavlich, Nathan Fyfe, Shaun McManus and Peter Bell dreamed of doing, and that’s lifting the premiership cup.

But beating this Brisbane team in front of 100,000 fans on the Melbourne Cricket Ground, where the Lions have had so much success in recent years, will be a mammoth task.

No team has been better when it matters most across the last five years than Brisbane, and the Dockers have looked shaky in September outside of quarters of brilliance.

Tip: Brisbane by 29 points

Norm Smith Medal: Kai Lohmann kicks five goals