Hawthorn confront a red-hot Melbourne in Friday night's AFL semi-final but Hawks stalwart Isaac Smith has warned against writing off the qualifying final losers.
The football world has thrown its arms around the Demons, who are contesting their first finals series in 12 seasons and chasing their first flag since 1964.
The love-in has extended to pundits and bookmakers, favouring Melbourne to march on against Alastair Clarkson's side and into a preliminary final.
On the evidence of last weekend, it's easy to see why.
Melbourne were effervescent against Geelong, putting together a first quarter that the Cats couldn't recover from.
Hawthorn tried to go with Richmond but fell well short and only a go-slow last term saved them from a blowout defeat.
Smith acknowledged the Demons' rise but suggested that was just the story of week one of the finals.
"It's funny. The teams that win the elimination finals have always seem to have a fair bit of momentum about them," he said.
"The teams that lose the qualifying finals seem to have none about them, so Melbourne have all the momentum.
"And we've got to stop that now."
However, history favours the qualifying finals losers in semi-finals.
Over the past decade, just four of 20 elimination final winners have backed up to make a preliminary final.
Combine that with Hawthorn's finals pedigree and you can understand Smith's confidence.
But for the Hawks to triumph at the MCG on Friday, several key players will need to improve on their outings against the Tigers.
Luke Breust barely touched it. Paul Puopolo's impact was slight.
James Frawley was beaten and Jack Gunston didn't trouble the goal umpire.
A particularly harsh marker would also have Shaun Burgoyne, with 17 touches, and captain Jarryd Roughead, who kicked three goals but was a touch off in major moments, as below-par.
Smith acknowledged the underperformance without mentioning names.
"There were a lot of people down on the weekend," he said,
"The guys you might be referring to, I don't think I've seen them put two bad performances together. I'd expect them to play pretty well Friday."
The Hawks must make at least one change against Melbourne, given Ben Stratton's hamstring injury.
Two-time flag winner Taylor Duryea and David Mirra were held back from the VFL side on the weekend and could be inclusions, along with late withdrawal Ryan Schoenmakers.
"A massive strength of Clarko's coaching ... is as soon as one bloke goes down, we don't necessary need to change the system," Smith said.
"I'm sure one of them will be able to slot in and do something."
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