Jack Payne was last year's hard luck story but the Brisbane Lions defender is still reaping the benefits from his teammates' experience ahead of his first AFL grand final.
The key defender missed last year's preliminary final and the decider with an ankle injury and was left fearing a repeat this season after damaging his knee in the Lions' elimination final win over Carlton.
He has battled through that though, laying a crucial late tackle to cap a fine performance in Saturday's defeat of Geelong that booked their berth against Sydney at the MCG on Saturday.
Payne spoke to reporters in Brisbane on Wednesday before jumping on a plane that will have his side in Melbourne more than 24 hours earlier than they arrived last year ahead of their four-point loss to Collingwood.
He said that itinerary tweak was a practical example of how last year's exposure was helping them.
"Last year was a pretty new experience for all of us, barring a couple like Charlie (Cameron) and Dunks (Josh Dunkley)," he said of a side short on grand final caps.
"This year though, we're very well equipped. We've been in that position before, so we know what to expect.
"We've got great belief in the group. Fages (coach Chris Fagan) has instilled that."
An early star of last year's grand final with two brilliant goals, Lion Zac Bailey reckons he's tried not to think too much about the rest of that afternoon.
"We needed to review that game and then put it behind us, but what came out was that Collingwood were better in a lot more moments than we were and that's going to be a focus for us this weekend," Bailey told AAP.
He admitted, however, that an emotional hangover from the loss had taken the first half of the season to overcome.
"Early on, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to play finals again and were not enjoying our footy as much," he said.
"In the second half, it wasn't everything, but what changed was playing with that freedom.
"You would have thought after the start of the season we wouldn't be here but we knew we can beat any side."
