The people versus the AFL. It sounds like a court case. And in terms of football romance and the court of public opinion over the next couple of weeks, perhaps it is.

Because there's certainly two very contrasting narratives developing heading into the penultimate weekend of this season. And sentimentally, they're at opposite ends of the spectrum.

The case being cheered on by the vast bulk of the Melbourne football public is a Cinderella story about a favourite but historically luckless old mate. The other side is a futuristic tale of football's holy grail being fought over by not just one but two teams hailing from what was once foreign and hostile territory.

For the keepers of our code, whose 30-year-long quest to turn a provincial competition into a truly national one, the prospect of a Sydney-Greater Western Sydney grand final is mouth-watering.

When the Sydney version of the Swans first reached the AFL grand final 20 years ago, a major bridge had been crossed.

Two decades on, the club has won two premierships, played in four grand finals and been a perennial part of September. To have it joined on the grand final stage by an inter-city rival would even in 1996 have seemed the stuff of fantasy.

There's been 11 premierships now won by clubs residing outside Victoria. Three grand finals played without a Victorian participant. A fourth, most significantly between two clubs from a non-traditional football state, would be the most glowing endorsement yet of the national competition.

Romantic? Perhaps not so much. And that's where the Western Bulldogs come in. Part of the competition for 92 seasons, they've played in only two grand finals. The last of them was 55 years ago, and it's 62 since their one and only premiership, in 1954.

In the interim, the Bulldogs have built a catalogue of almost but not quite efforts to rival Collingwood's famous run of grand final misses. Seven preliminary final appearances for seven losses between 1985 and 2010 is the sorry tale, three of them by 10 points or less.

Each version of the Dogs' tilt at a premiership seems to be backed by an alluring storyline. In the early '90s, it was a club that only a couple of years previously had been staving off the prospect of a merger. Later that decade, it was Terry Wallace's Bulldogs teams playing a highly offensive and attractive running game.

The end of the "noughties" saw Rodney Eade's teams manufacturing winning scores from undersized forward set-ups. Now, Luke Beveridge is the white knight, less than two years ago taking over a club that had sacked its coach midway through the off-season, had lost its captain to Saturday night's opponent, and seemed entrenched in mediocrity.

The belief Beveridge has instilled in essentially the same list since has been nothing short of astounding, and even as a neutral football fan, it's hard not to be caught up in it.

There's a cautionary tale here for football romantics, though, and the Bulldogs know it better than anyone.

It was in 1997, early in the final term of the second preliminary final of the weekend, that the ultimate grand final fairytale, a premiership playoff between the eternally downtrodden St Kilda and the Bulldogs was almost upon us, the Dogs leading Adelaide by 22 points.

Doggies fans don't need much reminding how that panned out, pipped at the post by some costly misses and a bit of Darren Jarman magic, of which St Kilda got an even more painful slice the following week when they lost the grand final to a club which had been in the competition only a handful of seasons. Ring a bell?

GWS bring their own excitement in a pure football sense, of the remaining four teams in the race arguably the one that best balances hardness at the contest with blistering outside run and attack.

The Giants, along with Sydney, Geelong and Western Bulldogs, are the four best defensive sides in the competition. But there's a bigger gap when it comes to offence.

GWS ranked behind only Adelaide for points scored this season. They average one goal per game more than both the Cats and Swans, and four goals per game more than the Dogs, who have managed to cobble together two of their three highest scores over the second half of the season in their two finals wins, but may need to find more still against the Giants.

Whoever wins Saturday night's preliminary final, we're at least assured of a grand final match-up we haven't seen previously. Even Friday night's game, while a battle of two September perennials, features two perennials who haven't had a lot to do with each other, this finals meeting just their second in the past 82 years.

Come Saturday night, at the very least, we'll be anticipating a grand final contest with a very fresh look about it. And whether it's one for the romantics or not might depend not only on whether you live north or south of the Murray River, but whether you're an administrator or a fan.

AND WHILE I'M AT IT

There's a pattern to much of the discussion that goes on during an AFL finals series, and after semi-final weekend, it's often about the value of the week's break to the two rested preliminary finalists.

Recent finals history suggests that value is, to say the least, considerable. Since 2007, of 18 preliminary finals, 17 have been won by the team coming off a week's break against sides playing their third final in three weeks, Hawthorn's defeat of Fremantle last year the only exception. Will the status quo be maintained?

Sydney's win over Adelaide on Saturday night was a bruising affair regardless of the comfortable margin on the scoreboard, and the casualties were visible in the aftermath, co-captain Jarrad McVeigh and Gary Rohan the most obvious, but a score of others nursing bumps and scrapes.

Sidelined: Injured Swans Gary Rohan and Jarrad McVeigh. Photo: Adam Trafford/AFL Media

Now, there's the not-insignificant matter of a six-day break to deal with before the clash with the Cats. But the potential spanner in the works of all that logic and history, as we've said already this September, is the week off which preceded it.

Sure, Geelong is rested. Too rested? By the time the Cats take on the Swans, they will have played one match in 23 days. For Greater Western Sydney, it will be one game in 24 days by match time against the Western Bulldogs.

They'll be taking on two teams about to play a third final in three weeks, but by virtue of the same pre-finals bye, teams which had some time, space and respite before steeling themselves for the finals assault.

The Bulldogs came out of their big win against Hawthorn unscathed, and will be playing a team which, however confidently it approached its first-ever final, is now just one victory away from grand final day, a position it couldn't possibly have envisaged only a few months ago.

If the Giants are a bit toey, a free weekend to dwell on the opportunity now beckoning might not necessarily have been the perfect recipe.

Yes, Sydney is sore. But the Swans aren't carrying nearly as many wounded as they did last September, and may regain Kurt Tippett and Callum Mills this week. Zak Jones and even ruckman Callum Sinclair could also potentially be in the mix.

Sydney can also take plenty of confidence from both the opponent and the venue. The Swans have beaten Geelong three of their last four meetings, the most recent a very impressive win on the Cats' own turf when they led from start to finish. They've also won three of their last four at the MCG, two of those victories over no less a team than Hawthorn, and the one defeat coming only after the siren.

We should have a definitive answer to the consequences of the pre-finals bye next Saturday night. Right now, though, I like the argument that the two semi-final winners have a better chance than usual of having a fourth final to play on the first day of October.