For all the forensic analysis surrounding the game, even the most important matches can still come down to very basic elements. And this finals series has produced a recurring and simple theme: taking your chances.
On Saturday, Sydney and Hawthorn have the sort of chance of which all clubs dream. But it's one that will only produce the ultimate reward for the team that makes a better fist of football's most significant skill: accuracy.
The Swans and Hawks will certainly be conscious of the dangers of not doing so given the events of the past few weeks.
It started in week one of the finals, when Essendon led North Melbourne by 33 points early in the third term of the elimination final, but with a scoreline of 7.8 to just two goals, should have led by plenty more. The Bombers would pay a hefty price.
In the semi-finals, Fremantle had Port Adelaide beaten everywhere but on the scoreboard at half-time. The Dockers led by five goals, but had kicked 6.11. We know how that turned out.
And on Saturday night, it was the Power's turn to curse missed opportunities. Early in the second quarter, Port led by only 13 points, despite having had 13 shots at goal to the Hawks' paltry five.
Port didn't have the yips as such - there weren't many howlers in front of goal - just enough shots fading left or right, a few degrees off. But Hawthorn nailed most of its opportunities, finishing with 15.7 compared with the Power's 13.16.
While it will go into this grand final an underdog, Hawthorn is hardly as big an outsider as it was leading up to its famous 2008 grand final upset of Geelong. That should be a source of encouragement.
But so, more tangibly, should its conversion. The Hawks learnt the hard way, not taking their chances against the Swans in the biggest game of the season two years ago.
Sydney, meanwhile, will have trouble finding much out of its own preliminary final thumping of North Melbourne over which to fret this week. But as coach John Longmire attempts to complete what has been close to a perfect preparation, goalkicking might just be one area.
The Swans finished the rout of the Roos with a 71-point victory, but it could easily have been closer to 100, given a final scoreline of 17.22.
Neither is the contrast between their conversion and Hawthorn's in either preliminary final a one-off, more a snapshot. The Hawks rank No.1 for overall accuracy, Sydney only ninth.
The Swans rank second for inside-50s on the differentials, the Hawks third. But while Hawthorn is first for goals from those entries, the flag favourite is a lowly 10th.
They're important differences given that in terms of potential firepower, there's little to choose between either side's forward set-ups, far beyond two in-form spearheads in Lance Franklin and Jarryd Roughead.
For Sydney, the quartet of talls in Franklin, Kurt Tippett, Adam Goodes and Sam Reid is, on paper, as intimidating as it gets, one that poses big match-up issues for Hawthorn's defence, which is not overly stocked with tall options.
While Hawthorn's forward structure isn't as tall, it has greater variety: height in Roughead and David Hale, a medium-sizer in Jack Gunston, and dangerous smalls in Luke Breust, Paul Puopolo and this week, possibly Cyril Rioli. Roughead, Gunston and Breust have 180 goals between them this season, the four Sydney forwards 153
But the Hawks convert at 65 per cent, Sydney 58.4, which might go a fair way to explaining Hawthorn being the heaviest-scoring team in 2014, and the Swans fourth.
Given the strength, literally, not to mention depth of either team's midfield, and their relatively even split of contested ball and clearances in their two previous clashes in 2014, which finished 1-1, it seems unlikely that simple weight of opportunity is going to tip heavily in favour of either team.
What's far more likely to be the decisive factor is just how efficiently each forward set-up deals with those chances.
There will be plenty of references this week to the epic 2012 grand final between these clubs, a classic that swung this way and that before Nick Malceski's last-minute snap sealed a 10-point Sydney win. The most pertinent, though, remains the final score that day - Sydney 14.7 (91) d Hawthorn 11.15 (81).
The Hawks finished 2012 ranked only 11th for accuracy, and set out do something about it. Last year, their ranking climbed to fourth. Now it can't go any higher. Sydney ranked No. 2 when it won the flag, and again last year. Its accuracy in 2014 is about the only area in which the Swans have gone backwards.
Saturday provides a grand final between the two best sides of this season. Plus an appetising sub-plot in Franklin going up against his premiership teammates of 12 months ago. It might well be the best game of the year in deed as well as name.
But no matter the stakes, still also just another game of football likely to be won by the side that kicks straighter.
And while I'm at it...
Saturday's grand final is obviously the most important game of the season. But you wonder if down the track, Port Adelaide's comeback victory over Fremantle in last week's semi-final might not rank too far behind.
In fairness to Fremantle, had the Dockers nailed their chances, we could be having a different discussion.
But Port's capacity to attack kept it in that game, just as the same quality almost ended up pinching a famous preliminary win over Hawthorn. And it raised some longer-term questions about what are the most important qualities required by prospective premiership teams.
The Power has come from nowhere to within touching distance of that status. And it has done so on the back of a relentlessly positive and offensive mindset. Ken Hinkley's✓ team is a joy to watch. And it wasn't a great surprise that plenty of neutrals willed it on over the past couple of weeks as a result.
Hawthorn and Port Adelaide ranked one and two for scoring this season. Grand finalist Sydney was fourth. It seems a fair indication that while successful finals football is supposed to be all about contested ball and tight defence, you do still have to actually score to win.
That's no great revelation even to the Dockers and coach Ross Lyon✓, either, who spoke pre-season about Freo needing two find two more goals per game. It didn't, indeed the Dockers' average dropped from 92.5 points per game to 92.2, yet with scoring down across the competition, Freo's ranking rose from 12th to seventh.
The loss for most of the season of Michael Walters✓ certainly didn't help, either. But the semi-final loss and Freo's bottom line of a post-season finish of sixth compared to runners-up last year does beg the question whether Lyon and Co. will need to consider less caution and more risk for potentially greater rewards in 2015.
It's forward potency and attack which increasingly separates the best sides from the mediocre. Melbourne, for instance, did well to shave six goals per game from the cricket scores it conceded last year. But the Demons also scored even less than 2013 and didn't top 100 points in a single game. That's no recipe for climbing the ladder.
More than just the material rewards, though, the way Port Adelaide played its football in 2014 created a buzz that reverberated around the entire competition.
Given licence to run, to create, to execute the sort of dare and dash which draws people to play the game in the first place, the Power always carried an air of effervescence and hope.
And surely, that was a factor in its capacity over these past couple of weeks to continue coming back from near-impossible positions when more dour defensive units might instead have turned to loss minimisation.
As Hinkley put it after the loss to Hawthorn on Saturday night: "If you want to watch footy that's exciting and fun, come and watch Port Adelaide, because we won't stop that. We'll keep playing that way.
"I've got a great belief in the way the game should be played and the players believe in it too. The whole club believes in it. We want footy to be fun. You should be able to play brave, consistent, tough and ruthless football, and Port Adelaide looked like it most of the season."
And all we can add to that is "Hear, hear".
