The weight of history is against the Brisbane Lions as they chase AFL premiership glory after a rocky 0-2 start to the new campaign.
Since 2000, only three of 114 teams who have lost their opening two games have gone on to reach a grand final in the same season.
And none of those - Sydney (2006 and 2014) and Collingwood (2018) - managed to claim the flag.
But veteran Dayne Zorko remains adamant the Lions can buck the trend as they enjoy a week off to recover from early season losses to Carlton and Fremantle.
"We certainly believe we can, there's no doubt about that," Zorko told reporters on Thursday.
"We've seen glimpses of our absolute best over the past two weeks but for whatever reason we just haven't been able to keep that momentum going.
"When teams have got a roll-on we've just sort of halted that a little bit.
"That's something that we've looked at. We'll look at the trends that are happening and we'll address them.
"We're a team that, under (Chris Fagan's) reign, that have learnt really quickly from our mistakes.
"Once we've identified them we've got to work on fixing them and I think this will be no different."
Brisbane threw away a 46-point lead in their opening-round home defeat to Carlton and were upset by Fremantle in Perth last week.
Collingwood, who beat the Lions in last year's grand final, have endured a similar 0-2 start to 2024 - and the sides will lock horns in a high-stakes clash at the Gabba in round three.
"Teams are coming prepared to play the better sides," Zorko said.
"They aspire to be like them and we were no different when Richmond had that really good era and Hawthorn had that really good era. We wanted to be just like them.
"Teams take everything they possibly can and collaborate all that information and come out with a really good game plan to beat them."
Brisbane were left reeling when skilful playmaker Keidean Coleman went down with a season-ending knee injury in the opening round and have since lost fellow half-back Conor McKenna to another hamstring setback.
The dashing McKenna, who missed the Carlton loss with a similar issue, is expected to be sidelined for another three weeks.
Zorko looms as possible back-up option in defence, as do Jarrod Berry, Cam Rayner and James Madden.
After Coleman went down, Lions great Jonathan Brown told AAP he wants to see the 35-year-old Zorko moved to defence to act as the chief architect of the team's ball movement.
"We're not short of stocks in that department ... but whoever gets called upon needs to be ready to play that position and their role for the team if they get given that chance," Zorko said.
"I certainly haven't hidden from the fact that I do like playing in the back-line.
"Defensively, at times, I've probably let myself down, but I do enjoy seeing the game from that point of view."
