THE BRISBANE Lions and Port Adelaide played some cracking matches in the first part of this decade, culminating in a fiery Grand Final – won by Port – in 2004.
And Lions coach Michael Voss is already looking ahead to Sunday's clash with the Power at AAMI Stadium, which is a virtual elimination final for his club and critically important for Port's finals hopes as well.
"What we do have in eight days' time is an opportunity in front of us against a side that is around us on the ladder," he said after the 19-point win over Melbourne at TIO Stadium on Saturday night.
"They're very important games and we won one last week against North Melbourne and Port have shown themselves to be a pretty good football team.
The Lions remain two games and a stack of percentage outside the eight. Basically, they will need to just about win each of their remaining six games, but it starts on Sunday afternoon against the most improved team in the competition.
"What we have put ourselves into is a position and have given ourselves an opportunity. Since the bye I have been really pleased with how the players have gone about things and we have given ourselves a chance," Voss said.
"But this week is going to be a very big game."
Voss also said he was pleased with the spread of goalkickers in the absence of Jonathan Brown, who failed to overcome a hip injury and did not make the trip to Darwin.
Brent Staker kicked three goals for the Lions, as did Josh Green, while Daniel Merrett again played the swingman role to perfection with two goals.
Said Voss: "We keep sharing this workload around so that we don't rely on one individual to kick us 50 to 60 goals to get the wins."
Ashley Browne is an AFL Media senior writer. You can follow him on Twitter @afl_hashbrowne.