Beware the wounded top four team! That is the message for those writing off the Western Bulldogs and St Kilda in this weekend's knockout semi-finals on the basis of their heavy qualifying final defeats against Hawthorn and Geelong last week.
The Bulldogs take on Sydney in the first of this week's semi-finals at the MCG on Friday night while arch-rivals St Kilda and Collingwood go head-to-head in the other semi-final at the MCG on Saturday night.
The winner of the Dogs-Swans semi will take on Geelong in the preliminary final next week while the winner of the Saints-Magpies clash will meet Hawthorn in the other preliminary final.
And while the Cats and Hawks will go in the hottest of favourites next week, this week's games are difficult to predict given just one win separated all four teams at the end of the home and away season.
But it would be so easy to write off the Bulldogs and the Saints' chances again this week, particularly as Sydney and Collingwood recorded such impressive elimination final wins last week against North Melbourne and Adelaide respectively.
After all winning form is good form and these two teams appear to be heading into the semi-finals with all the momentum against two teams that were beaten by nearly ten goals last week.
But history suggests the beaten qualifying finalists - this year being the Saints and the Bulldogs - will hit back hard this week.
Seemingly every year the first-week losers are written off but time and time again the teams that have finished in the top four and earned the double chance have shown they can bounce back.
Since the current finals series began in 2000 - 14 of the 16 semi-final winners have been the teams that lost the qualifying finals in week one.
The only teams to bow out of the finals in 'straight sets' over the past eight years were Port Adelaide in 2001 - at the hands of Hawthorn at AAMI Stadium - and last year when West Coast drew with Collingwood at Subiaco but were overrun in extra time.
And plenty of teams have looked even worse than the Saints and Bulldogs did last week before bouncing back in week two of the finals.
North Melbourne suffered 100-point plus defeats in the qualifying finals of 2000 and 2008 against Essendon and Geelong respectively only to bounce back and beat Hawthorn the following week in the semi-finals in both those years.
And in 2001 Richmond lost its qualifying final by 70 points to Essendon and the following week came up against a Carlton side that had beaten Adelaide by 68 points in the elimination final and prevailed by 11 points
Certainly Collingwood coach Mick Malthouse, who side has been installed as favourites by the bookmakers against the higher-ranked Saints on Saturday night, is aware of how hard it is for the elimination final winners to back up the following week against teams hell-bent on atoning for qualifying final defeats.
"For one reason or another someone gets a hiding one week and they find something special for the following week," he said.
"We all say 'why does it happen' but we have all played the game and we all know sometimes you have a disastrous game but the following week you grit your teeth a bit harder and you become a better player."
So don't be surprised if the Dogs and Saints triumph this week, in spite of last week's results.