Brisbane vs Sydney - Gabba - Saturday Night
Brisbane 13th - 7-14 - 93.19%
Sydney 5th - 12-9 - 106.46%
One of the competitions form sides will head north of the border this weekend in the hope of securing a home final.
The Sydney Swans have been in super form over the past three weeks and will enter September confident of doing some damage if they can maintain their current tempo.
For the Lions the last three weeks have been a lot better, two wins and a tight loss as some system and structure starts to return to the fold.
Jonathan Brown's 200th game last week was the perfect tonic for the group and the gutsy champion produced a vintage performance taking 16 marks accross half forward.
He ended up with 4.6 but the impact he has on his team goes beyond the stat sheet and as he finally succumbs to injury in 2010 you can guarantee it will hurt his team immensely.
Rockliff, Redden, Banfield, Harwood and Leunberger continue to develop nicely for the Lions but it is imperative they don't lose all of Brennan, Rischitelli and Drummond with all suggested as possible players looking for a new home.
It appears almost certain Brennan will go, and Drummond is keen to stay, the Lions just cannot meet his pay demands whilst Rischitelli has had a ripper season and they would be keen to secure his signature.
For the Swans last week was another triumph in the partnership of Paul Roos and Brett Kirk with a gutsy home win over quality opposition.
Together they have symbolised what has been a wonderful era for this proud club and you cannot help but admire the way the Sydney Swans go about things.
With Bradshaw and Bolton a chance to return early in September you wonder which path Roos might go down, given he would be taking a risk to select them with hardly any footy under their belt, yet at the same time he'd be well aware of the importance these blokes hold to their structure.
You must also factor in that O'Keefe and Mcglynn didn't play either and Mumford went down early in the game so it was an excellent victory.
This week though the Swans have few concerns with all the injury and selection issues located up north in the mind of Michael Voss.
Without Brown it's hard to picture Brisbane breaking through the strong defensive zone that Sydney applies often enough to win the game.
Sydney are aslo a wonderful stoppage team and should restrict them enough firstly, and then exploit the sometimes loose Lions runners.
Sydney by 17 points
(Match preview cut short due to my flu battle...apologies )
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