As I mentioned last week, teams from the Top 4 ladder positions have a remarkable recent record in Semi-Finals. This record was enhanced this week with wins by the Cats and the Swans meaning that teams from positions 1 through 4 at the end of the home-and-away season now have a 26 and 2 record in Semi-Finals.

Teams from 1st, 2nd and 4th all have perfect records in Semi-Finals, the sole failures for losing Qualifying Finalists being down to teams finishing 3rd: Port Adelaide in 2001, and West Coast in 2007.

So, next week sees Preliminary Finals involving only teams from the Top 4 for the 6th consecutive season.

In the first of those Preliminary Finals 1st will meet 2nd for the 8th time in 14 seasons, with the team finishing 1st having a slightly superior 4-3 record. 

It's also the 8th time 3rd has faced 4th in the other Preliminary Final during this same period, though here the higher-finishing team has a slightly better 5-2 record.

Overall, teams from 4th have had a rough time in Preliminary Finals. Their aggregate record is just 2 and 11.