Collingwood and St Kilda have taken the gamble and named Scott Burns and Luke Ball respectively for Saturday night's knockout semi-final at the MCG but whether the star midfielders take their places in the final 22 remains to be seen.
The Saints put Ball - who has not played since injuring his hamstring in round 18 - through a secret fitness test behind closed doors on Thursday while Burns, who has missed the past two games with a calf injury, looked to be moving well when the Pies had their main training session for the week on Wednesday.
Both are vital to their team's respective chances, as two of the best ball winners in the AFL.
However the Saints seemed to be preparing for the possibility of Ball again being an onlooker on Saturday night when his fellow midfielder Leigh Montagna declared on Thursday the Saints could win without Ball - despite losing last week's qualifying final without him by nearly ten goals to Geelong.
"We would love to have him out there, he's obviously one of our terrific on-ball players, but we don't need him," Montagna said of Ball.
"We've won in the past without him and we can do it again but, fingers crossed, we're hoping he can get through training today and play."
The Saints also promoted David Armitage with Xavier Clarke and Charlie Gardiner the only two players to pay the price for last week's loss to the Cats.
Rhyce Shaw was the player dropped to make way for Burns with veteran defender Simon Prestigiacomo named despite injuring his shoulder against Adelaide last week - although Shane Wakelin was named as an emergency and could yet take Prestigiacomo's place in the side.
And star forward Travis Cloke was also named despite missing training on Wednesday.
Sydney named an unchanged side for the other semi-final against the Western Bulldogs at the MCG on Friday night but Swans' coach Paul Roos hinted, upon his team's arrival at Melbourne Airport on Thursday afternoon, that his team may make a late change.
"Craig Bird trained well and Luke Ablett's a little bit sore but we expect Luke to play," Roos said.
"There may be a late change but it'll probably be as of last week."
Bird was a late withdrawal from last week's elimination final win over the Kangaroos due to a groin injury.
While the Swans go into Saturday night's game on a high - after their win over the Roos while the Dogs go in coming off a 51-point hiding from the Hawks in last week's other qualifying final - Roos said his team must improve further to beat the third-placed Dogs.
Roos is all too aware his team lost both home and away games against the Dogs this season - albeit narrowly by 18 points at the SCG in Round 7 and by 16 points in Canberra in round 18.
"It's a new ball game (in finals) but they would go in with some confidence," Roos said of the Bulldogs.
"We've played them twice, they've been pretty good games and they've been pretty close and they've blown us away in the second quarter both times."
"So we know they're a good team - you don't finish third on the ladder if you can't play and we know we're going to have to play better than what we have the past couple of games against