WHEN Melbourne runs out on to Optus Stadium for its preliminary final clash against West Coast, two talismanic figures will be at the forefront of the long-suffering supporters' thoughts.

One of those – Nathan Jones – will be out on the turf, leading his Demons in pursuit of their first Grand Final berth in 18 years.

The other is Jim Stynes, the beloved champion player and administrator without whom the club might have ceased to exist 10 years ago.

Jones, 30, will equal Stynes' 264 career games on Saturday, a tally that ranks fourth behind David Neitz (306), Robbie Flower (272) and Adem Yze (271) on Melbourne's all-time list.

Stynes lost his battle with cancer six years ago but his legacy remains a core part of the club's story, and never more appreciated than in this week, when Melbourne returns to the preliminary finals.

It was a stage the ruckman graced four times in his 12-season career and one Irish AFL fan last week ensured that Jimmy's memory would be suitably honoured as the Demons rose again.

Gary Brady drove up to the Wicklow Mountains to the memorial that marks where Stynes' ashes were scattered and draped a Melbourne scarf over the headstone.

The rugged, windblown terrain near Stynes' family home outside Dublin was the stage where the newly anointed Brownlow medallist vowed to find his physical and mental limits in late 1991.

As he recalled in his autobiography, My Journey, he used a run of more than 20km through the unforgiving mountain range to test himself.

"There were very few telegraph poles up there, just the old road ahead, surrounded by coarse beds of heather and wiry sedge, with the odd glimpse of limestone," Stynes wrote.

"My goal was no longer a telegraph pole or a signpost on the horizon; it was a gorse shrub twenty metres ahead. Then, realising again that my body was hurting, I would focus my mind on the next little target, the next small shrub or rock by the roadside.

"Tricking the mind, maintaining the surrender. When you're confronted by any overwhelming challenge, it can be broken down into small triumphs like that."

In many respects, Stynes and Jones couldn't be more different.

The courageous, athletic Gaelic football star trying his hand at a foreign sport in an entirely new country and succeeding despite seemingly insurmountable odds.

Jones, the prodigiously talented junior sportsman whose appetite for the contest propelled him into the first round of the NAB AFL Draft in 2006, among contemporaries that included Scott Pendlebury and West Coast's Josh Kennedy.

Jim Stynes came from Ireland and became a legend of Australian football. Picture: AFL Photos

At 199cm, the lean, lithe Stynes dwarfed Jones' power-packed 180cm frame.

But not his heart.

The pair of Demon greats have endeared themselves to the red and blue faithful with their lion-hearted efforts under duress.

Both won multiple best and fairests in years that the club struggled, while Jones ascended to the captaincy in the wake of Melbourne's worst season in recent memory, the 2013 horror show, and helped incoming coach Paul Roos rebuild a shattered club.

It’s a club that might not have existed at all had Stynes not already shouldered his own enormous burden by assuming the presidency in 2008, when crippling debt, a crisis of leadership and plummeting form threatened Melbourne's existence.

Like Stynes' gruelling mountain runs, the Demons' resurrection under Jones' leadership can be aptly described as a series of small triumphs, gradually snowballing into something greater. 

First, winning the first game of the season. Then winning two games in a row.

Ending a series of long-time hoodoos, like triumphing at Etihad Stadium. Then beating St Kilda, North Melbourne and Hawthorn.

Reaching the finals after the heartbreak of 2017. Winning one, beating the Cats for the first time in three attempts. Then knocking off the Hawks in front of a second successive 90,000-plus crowd at the MCG.

This is what Jones hoped for when he turned down the chance to join rival clubs in pursuit of success, a choice that many of his former teammates understandably made.

It's what Stynes dreamed of when he assumed the presidency more than 10 years ago, with the club on its knees.

So when the Demons stride out to face the Eagles in hostile territory on Saturday afternoon, Melbourne diehards will cheer on their captain, while thinking of a windswept outcrop adorned in red and blue almost 15,000km away, and offer their heartfelt thanks to both.