As Sydney and Hawthorn meet in Saturday's grand final, there's, as usual, a premiership cup on offer to reward nearly 12 months of hard work. But this year, for the Swans and Hawks, there might be even a little more at stake.

Grand final day brings together two teams for whom success in the modern-day environment of the AFL is a byword.

Hawthorn has been by any measure the post-war period's "winningest" club. It took the Hawks until 1961 to win their first flag, but they've won another 10 in the past 43 years, and victory in this game will make them the first club since the VFL officially became the AFL in 1990 to win four premierships.

Sydney, meanwhile, has, over the past 20 years, gone from laughing stock to perennial finalist. The Swans this year are contesting their 16th finals campaign from the past 19 seasons, a more frequent part of September over that time than any rival. Grand final victory will make it three flags in the past 10 seasons, half the club's entire haul of six.

But exactly which is the AFL's most successful club isn't necessarily as easy to answer as it used to be.

Supporters of Carlton and Essendon will sing long and loud that it is they who hold bragging rights, each with 16 VFL and AFL premierships, just ahead of Collingwood's 15. But fans from beyond the Victorian border, not unjustifiably, have an issue with that seeing their clubs had no opportunity to make their own mark for most of that time.

If the name change from a Victorian-based competition to a national league in 1990 is a starting point, there's four clubs each on top of the "ladder" with three flags apiece, Hawthorn, Geelong, and another two – West Coast and Brisbane Lions – from far beyond the Victorian border.

But is it that simple anymore? Sustained success in the AFL era has been harder to come by than it used to be in the VFL days.

Consider the following. The last 23 premierships won under the VFL banner between 1967-89 were shared by just five clubs – Carlton, Hawthorn, Richmond, North Melbourne and Essendon. Saturday's grand final will be the 25th contested in the AFL. The 24 to date have been spread across no fewer than 11 different clubs.

Perhaps we need a better indicator of which clubs hold the AFL's balance of power, one that reflects not only a one-off triumph on grand final day, but the considerable achievement of just reaching one, not to mention consistently featuring at the pointy end of the season. And by those measures, Hawthorn and Sydney scrub up very well indeed.

In a system that awards three points for a premiership, two for a grand final berth and another point for reaching a finals campaign, it's Geelong that leads the pack, West Coast second, but with the Hawks and Swans breathing down their neck. And change could be afoot.

On this measurement, if Hawthorn wins this grand final, it not only stays ahead of Saturday's opponent, but would draw level with the Eagles as the AFL era's second most successful club. And if Sydney wins, the Swans will leapfrog the side it has beaten into third.

Not that several, instead of just one gauge of what constitutes on-field success changes the pecking order significantly.

Brisbane would be miffed that despite its premiership hat-trick of 2001-03 it sits not only behind the four clubs just mentioned, but Collingwood and Essendon besides, the Magpies getting the nod from the Bombers on "percentage" because of one extra grand final appearance.

But success for the Lions has been short in supply since those glory days, appearing in just one finals campaign in a decade since the club competed in its fourth successive grand final against Port Adelaide in 2004.

Nor can Adelaide, despite its back-to-back flags of 1997-98, claim equal status with Sydney, Collingwood, Essendon and North Melbourne. The Crows do have a 100 per cent strike rate with grand finals, but 12 finals campaigns from 24 seasons in the competition can't match the others for shots at the crown nor September consistency.

Geelong remains the standard-bearer, and not only because of its recent greatness. While it didn't deliver a long-awaited premiership, the Malcolm Blight (and later Gary Ayres) era for the Cats was bountiful, with three grand final appearances in the early '90s, and another just before the league was renamed.

Ditto West Coast, which played in three grand finals from 1991-94 and was a part of 10 consecutive finals series from 1990-99. But another sign of how difficult is success to both achieve, then sustain, in the AFL era is the various troubles even those clubs, let alone Sydney and Hawthorn, have had along the way.

Sydney in 1993 was (not for the first time) within a whisker of folding. The hapless Swans were broke, and on-field as coaching legend Ron Barassi was enlisted in an SOS mission, racked up 26 consecutive losses.

Yet within three years they'd be in a grand final, and for two decades have been a near-permanent part of September.

Hawthorn's 1991 premiership triumph over West Coast was its eighth flag in 20 years. But the Hawks would run into enormous financial strife over the next few years, and by 1996 were famously within a membership vote of merging with Melbourne.

How long ago that seems now, a club since rebuilt under the chairmanship of Ian Dicker, and one which under the coaching of Alastair Clarkson these past 10 seasons has meticulously put together a playing group that continues season after season to challenge for the highest honours.

In an age where nearly a dozen different clubs have tasted premiership success and no fewer than 14 have at least played off for one in a grand final, it's been a remarkable achievement.

Greatness in 2014 awaits either Sydney or Hawthorn in this year's grand final. Greatness in the context of football's post-AFL era is an on-going debate. And both the Swans and Hawks on Saturday have a big opportunity to climb a little closer to the top of that ladder as well.