LUKE Beveridge started his first season as an AFL coach with four wins from five games that set up the Western Bulldogs as the feel-good story of the premiership race.
And he had a wish as the blue-collar Bulldogs became the team to watch, cheer and admire while not feeling any less pride for your own club.
"The public want to see the underdog have a victory," Beveridge said. "(But) we don't want to be everyone's second-best side." Tonight, his wish will be granted. Beveridge will lead the Western Bulldogs to the MCG for their first final in five years. The old Footscray is the code's hard-luck team. The Dogs have fallen short in six preliminary finals since 1992. They have not played in a grand final since 1961. No premiership trophy has been hugged and kissed at The Kennel since 1954. 
Footscray, the Western Bulldogs, has the longest premiership drought in the AFL. But all the support the Bulldogs could have expected in this month's finals series, particularly from the fans from the 10 non-competing clubs, went as soon as Adelaide became the last of the eight teams to qualify for the major round. More so on Saturday when the Crows and Bulldogs became a confirmed pairing for tonight's elimination final at the MCG.
The Bulldogs' baggage - the premiership drought, the long-running curse from preliminary finals, in particular 1997 when Brownlow Medallist Tony Liberatore's last-quarter goal was registered as a behind, and the general image of wretched history since the club rose from the VFA in 1925 - would have made Beveridge's Sons of the West the sentimental team to support.
But even that seven-decade story of disappointment and misery does not overshadow all that has overcome Adelaide since   July 3 - and what the Crows players have done to overcome the tragedy of losing their coach, Phil Walsh.
Tonight if - and it is far from an unlikely result - the Crows win their first final since 2012 there will be even Bulldogs fans who would say, "If we had to go out, I'll take it to the Crows." This was once beyond any imagination considering how the Crows bundled the Bulldogs out of two preliminary finals in the 1990s.
Not even the most-devoted Port Adelaide fan, who takes any Adelaide victory as a personal affront, could deny admiration for the Crows players after all they have been through and defied in the past 10 weeks. Considering Walsh's time at Alberton, where he is a life member and architect of the Power's 2004 premiership, any honour achieved by Adelaide this year in memory of Walsh has to be cherished even across the grand divide of SA football.
The Crows are now everyone's second team.
Australian football has had its emotional, fairytale premierships before. There was Carlton in 1987 when its South Australian recruit, Peter Motley, had fought for his life after a car crash as he was returning home from training.
The script does not always end well. Hawthorn lost the 1975 grand final as its captain Peter Crimmins fought a losing battle with cancer and was denied a place in the Hawks' grand final team. Blight's so-called Footy Gods are not always sentimental.
No one expects Adelaide to win its third premiership this season. But no one would begrudge the Crows that triumph in honour of Walsh and the brave Crows who have carried his legacy for the past three months.
The Western Bulldogs would have felt the supportive power of hundreds of thousands of neutral football fans at another time. Tonight, millions of Australians will look at the Crows with a prayer or a wish for them to win in honour of Walsh. They are, like never before, everyone's second team.
michelangelo.rucci@news.com.au
QUOTE OF THE WEEK "CAN you imagine any other sport in the world where you earn the right to have a home final - and you don't get to play it (at your home ground)? You've got to have integrity in the competition - and the AFL haven't got it." - Western Bulldogs great LUKE DARCY giving the "integrity" image at AFL House a nice tickle after the league ordered his former club to play its elimination final at the MCG rather than Etihad Stadium tonight.
WHO TO LOVE IN THE 2015 AFL FINAL SERIES RUCCI on SATURDAY FREMANTLE IT is almost 20 years since South Australia's own, Wayne Jackson, as AFL chief executive, put on a woolly jumper and sang the Dockers club song in the Fremantle huddle at the MCG.
By now, Jackson has probably worn out that sweater chasing cattle on the farm in the South-East - and the Dockers still don't have an AFL premiership to match any of the national expansion sides from the last century.
There is another much-loved South Australian to consider: Fremantle captain Matthew Pavlich who may be on his last roll of the dice for the premiership honour he does deserve.
WEST COAST WHO thought the Eagles would be in the finals even before they took hit after hit with injury to key players? Adam Simpson, another disciple of Alastair Clarkson's coaching dynasty, has done a marvellous job in moving West Coast to a new era beyond the shadows of Ben Cousins, Chris Judd and Daniel Kerr.
A fourth AFL flag since the first in 1992 would make a statement.
Any team whose fans jeer the Australian of the Year, Sydney veteran Adam Goodes, hardly appears to have shed the image of the "Evil Empire".
HAWTHORN A TITLE is on the line - and not just Hawthorn's calling card as AFL premier. If the Hawks successfully defend that title by winning their third consecutive flag and fourth under Alastair Clarkson's watch since 2008 they will dismiss Brisbane and Geelong as the greatest dynasty of this century - and Collingwood from the previous.
Okay, we have lifted the Hawks to the pedestal and admired them for two consecutive seasons as the AFL king. So Australian tradition demands we knock them down now.
SYDNEY A PROUD South Australian - Andrew Pridham - leads Sydney. A couple of Port Adelaide premiership heroes, Josh Francou and Stewart Dew, are on the coaching panel. It is a hard stretch to make an appealing case for the banged-up Swans, although if they won this year's flag it would be a football's version of a miracle.
If you want to see the AFL squirm, cheer for the Swans. And please sign their petition to have trade sanctions lifted from a club that has broken no rule.
ADELAIDE EVERYONE knows the script that would draw the world's attention to the AFL for a remarkable achievement by the Adelaide Football Club. For all the Crows have endured since their coach Phil Walsh died on   July 3, the concept of a third AFL premiership trophy sitting alongside Adelaide's 1997 and 1998 flags defines a football miracle.
No more needs to be said than: Phil Walsh.
NORTH MELBOURNE IT is the 40th anniversary of the Shinboners winning their first VFL-AFL title with our own Malcolm Blight being part of history (a trend he seems to have). The Kangaroos don't seem to have that appeal as a "second team" as they had in the 90s when Denis Pagan and Wayne Carey defined excellence in Australian football.
If only to see North Melbourne coach Brad Scott crack a smile â€¦ and contemplate repeating Mark Williams' line: "You were wrong!"
RICHMOND MUCH-LOVED Tiger hero Kevin Bartlett has organised a major party to watch Richmond to unfurl its premiership flag if the boys from Punt Road end a drought that has made for stand-up comedy since 1980. The list of those to hoist the flag includes royalty. After 35 years, "KB" is certain it is "Tiger Time". There have been false prophets before.
Well, it is the best song in football. And it has been 14 years since people have felt their hair stand on end as it echoes around the MCG in a final. Yellow and black!
WESTERN BULLDOGS FOOTSCRAY - some would prefer Ted Whitten's club to be still known as Footscray - is amid the longest premiership drought in VFL-AFL football with no flag since 1954 â€¦ and no grand final since 1961 when they lost to Hawthorn. In any other year, they would be everyone's adopted team for the final series.
And the meek shall inherit the Earth. Noone is sure when. No-one would begrudge the blue-collared 'Dogs a flag, but there isa bigger fairytale this year