If there is one thing certain this week ahead of the Brisbane Lions’ Friday night MCG clash with Melbourne it is that Chris Fagan will be asked repeatedly about his team’s record at the MCG.

Equally certain is the fact that he’ll re-affirm his position that he’s not overly worried about it. As he did when the same topic was raised after Saturday’s win over West Coast.

And history overwhelmingly supports him.

Yes, the Lions were poor on their most recent visit in Round 13, when, coming off the bye, they lost by 25 points after being 17 points up just after halftime and again midway through the third quarter.

_{Images: Round 13 Hawthorn v Lions MCG}

It was a disappointing capitulation, but as Fagan has insisted it does it mean the Lions should fear playing at headquarters, or are facing a giant hoodoo at the ground.

Going into the semi-final against Melbourne last year the Lions had lost eight in a row at the MCG under Fagan and 11 in a row overall, going all the way back to Round 21 2014.

The Lions sat 15^th on the ladder with a 6-13 win/loss record and were coming off a 105-point Gabba loss to Adelaide as they prepared to take on Collingwood, who were ninth on the ladder but equal 7^th on premiership points at 10-9 and right in finals contention.

The Lions, with only Dayne Zorko and Darcy Gardiner of the current players in the side won by 67 points against an opposition that had finished four spots higher on the home-and-away ladder and had beaten them by 58 points at the Gabba in Round 23 a fortnight earlier.

This wasn’t the first lesson of this type.

In 1995 the then Brisbane Bears played their first final at the MCG. They’d snuck into the top eight with a 10-12 record and faced an elimination final against minor premiers Carlton, who had finished the home-and-away season four games clear of the field at 20-2.

The Bears had lost 16 games in a row at the MCG prior that historic moment, going all the way back to 1988. Thirteen members of the 20-man team had never won at ‘headquarters’.

And while they went down that day by 13 points after starting nervously and conceding a 22-point Carlton lead at quarter-time, they lost no fans. Especially when Carlton beat North Melbourne by 62 points in the preliminary final and Geelong by 61 points in the grand final.

The Bears, who had won six of their last seven to make the finals, losing only to Carlton, were overwhelmingly acclaimed as the second-best team in the competition in September despite not winning at the MCG.

An even more compelling case unfolded during the golden years of 2001-02-03.

The Lions went into Round 15 2001 with a 1-11 record at the MCG since mid-1997. Their only win had been in Round 21 1999 when, sitting third on the 16-team ladder, they beat 14^th-placed Melbourne by 55 points.

_{Image: Leigh Matthews LHS, Alistair Lynch RHS}

But the third-placed Lions beat seventh-placed Collingwood by 26 points in a game critical to the finals prospects of both sides. And 11 weeks later, in their next visit to the MCG, they beat defending premiers Essendon in the grand final.

Going into the grand final the combined record of the 22 Brisbane players that day in a Brisbane jumper was 41-184. And that included 18 wins in the Round 15 game. Without them it was 23-166.

Marcus Ashcroft, who had waited 258 games to play in a grand final, was 3-20 at the MCG over 13 years before that day. Norm Smith Medallist Shaun Hart was 3-18, Darryl White 3-15, Nigel Lappin 3-14, Justin Leppitsch 2-15, Chris Scott 1-15, Craig McRae 3-12, Michael Voss 3-11, Clark Keating 3-8, Simon Black 2-8, Tim Notting and Daniel Bradshaw 2-6, Luke Power 1-5, Beau McDonald 1-4 and Jonathan Brown 1-2.

Chris Johnson was 3-9 for Brisbane going into the grand final, Alastair Lynch 2-10, Brad Scott 1-5 and off-season recruits Mal Michael and Martin Pike 1-1. Robert Copeland had never played on the MCG before the premiership decider against the Bombers.

The 2001 wins in Round 15 and the grand final were the first two of a five-week Brisbane streak at headquarters that included a win over Hawthorn in Round 17 2002, the 2002 grand final win over Collingwood and a win over Collingwood in Round 19 2003.

In the 2003 qualifying final they led Collingwood at every change only to go down by 15 points, with  captain Michael Voss seemingly done for the season with a bad knee.

Yet three weeks later they returned to the MCG and despite a raft of injuries headed by Nigel Lappin’s broken ribs and punctured lung, they beat Collingwood by 50 points in the grand final.

In 2004 they won three times at the MCG before going down to Port Adelaide in the grand final, when Jonathan Brown played on one leg and Alastair Lynch played virtually no role after a first quarter injury.

The over-riding lesson from all of this is clear .. if you’re good enough you win anywhere. And if you’re not good enough you’re more likely to lose travelling interstate.

So, irrelevant are the MCG records of the more experienced visitors like Dayne Zorko (2-13), Daniel Rich (3-1-19), Harris Andrews (1-12), Hugh McCluggage (1-10), Jarrod Berry (1-9), Cam Rayner and Ryan Lester (1-8), Oscar McInerney (0-7) and Zac Bailey (1-6).

For the record, Brisbane’s overall record at the MCG from 84 games since 1987 is 19-1-64. They have played most often at the MCG against Melbourne (4-15), Richmond (3-16), Collingwood (7-6) and North Melbourne (1-10).

They are 2-6 against Hawthorn at the MCG, 1-1-5 against Essendon, 1-1 against Geelong, 0-2 against Carlton and the Western Bulldogs and 0-1 against Port Adelaide.

The club is 5-8 in finals at the ‘G’, including a 4-1 run during the premiership hat-trick when their only loss was the 2003 qualifying final to Collingwood.

Of the current playing list, Jack Gunston has played far and away most games at the MCG. The former Hawthorn star has a 62-39 record from 101 visits. Conor McKenna (10-16) and Lachie Neale (8-14) are the only others to play at headquarters more than 20 times.

And at the other end of the scale, Jaspa Fletcher and Kai Lohmann have never played there.