Goran Ivanišević used to speak of the “Three Gorans”, the unholy trinity that tortured him, bewildered others and merged and mashed in one fortnight in 2001 to produce a Wimbledon title.

Bad Goran was the raving lunatic who’d smash rackets and lose to qualifiers. Good Goran was the big-serving, sure-volleying man whose ceiling was usually the quarter-finals. Emergency Goran was the man possessed who’d emerge from a rain delay a completely changed player, who’d fire down aces like mortar shells, and who was capable of annihilating any tennis player in the world.

There has always been a touch of that about Luke Beveridge’s Western Bulldogs. The Bad Bulldogs walk on to the football field like ghosts, are smashed in the contest, and leave all the heavy lifting to their captain. The Good Bulldogs hunt from pack to pack, strip the ball back off the opposition, handball laterally to create space and relieve pressure, and move the ball quickly and decisively to their crop of star young forwards.

The Emergency Bulldogs take the best of the Good Bulldogs, and add almost a spiritual quest, a missionary zeal, a short campaign where everything just flows, where no matter where they are on the ladder they look like the best team in Australia. It only lasted a month in 2016, but a month was enough. In 2021, the Emergency Bulldogs were quarantining, being shunted from state to state, speaking like yoga instructors and working like stevedores.

The Dogs find themselves in a familiar position this weekend. They have the second-best percentage in the competition. Their best player may well be the All-Australian captain. They’ve knocked off most of the major contenders. Their midfield is ferocious and peerless on its day. Their forward line is capable of slamming on big scores like no other team.

But there’s every possibility they won’t make it. They have to beat one of the in-form teams in the competition, an opponent they have considerable history with, an opponent that brings pressure like no other, an opponent with at least two home finals at stake. Unlike the Dogs, you know exactly which Giants team is going to turn up.