Losing a grand final is perhaps the biggest pain in sport, but North Melbourne have used the hurt to drive them to a new unbeatable level this year.

The Kangaroos are one game away from an unbeaten season with a draw against Geelong in round two the only blemish on their otherwise dominant 2024 record.

Victory against the lowly Gold Coast Suns, who’ve won just one game this year, would see them join the 2017 Brisbane team as the only other side to finish a regular season without losing a game.

Although curiously the Lions failed to win the flag in 2017 going down in the decider to Adelaide by six points.

However, the inaugural season had just seven games as opposed to the 11 the Roos managed to navigate this year.

It comes after they went down to the Lions by 17 points in their first-ever grand final appearance last season and have done just about everything right to go one better this time around.

Coach Darren Crocker believes the learnings from last year have them more prepared for finals this time round.

“Grand Finals are hard to make, let alone win,” Crocker told AFL.com.au

“It was our AFLW program’s first ever Grand Final appearance, so there was always going to be a big build-up, potentially a weight of expectation around being the first ever premiers for North Melbourne in the AFLW space.”

However, the philosophy for the Kangaroos throughout the season has been about living in the moment and Crocker insists that won’t change heading into finals.

“What we’ve spoken a lot about (is) just staying in the moment, staying present. You know, what do we have to do, that’s right in front of our nose at the moment?” Crocker said.

“You even look at this week, we’re coming into the last round of the season against Gold Coast. We’re obviously entrenched in the finals, in the top part of the draw for the finals, but we’ve still got a job to do this week.

“It’s a great opportunity to have a full dress rehearsal for the type of footy we want to play in finals.”