BRISBANE is right where it wants to be ahead of Saturday night’s Grand Final – embracing the underdog tag.

Although captain Bre Koenen chuckles and finds it “funny” the reigning premiers are the heavy outsiders with bookmakers, she can understand why following North Melbourne’s dominant season.

But that all suits the Lions just fine, as a club and team that has thrived off being counted out since the competition’s inception in 2017.

Koenen told AFL.com.au embracing the status has come out of necessity over the years and something that unified the group.

“It’s a bit ironic,” she laughed.

“We’ve been in the last three Grand Finals, so I don’t know how we’re still underdogs, but we’ll take it, we love being the underdog.

“I’m sure North Melbourne won’t be underestimating us, though.”

A lot of the mentality stems from foundation coach Craig Starcevich, who is as protective of his team as any leader in the competition.

Following his own successful playing career and high performance role with the three-peat Lions of the early 2000s, Starcevich was an early advocate for women’s football in Queensland.

He’s followed and worked with many of his current list since they were in their early teens, developing through the state’s pathway.

“He’s got a chip on his shoulder,” Koenen smirked.

“That’s the running joke. It comes up every year and we know what he’s going to say.

“And rightfully so. He’s built this program from the ground up with (head of football) Bree Brock and they deserve all the accolades they get.

“I think it’s a little bit disrespectful at times to them in particular, and that’s probably why he feels a certain way.”

Koenen said whether Brisbane was perceived as favourites or not made little difference.

The Kangaroos smacked them in round one by 44 points, have gone through the season unbeaten and are rightly favoured heading into the decider.

It will be Brisbane’s sixth Grand Final as they chase a record-equalling third premiership.

“You can’t get sucked into the external stuff,” Koenen said.

“As we’ve found out in the past, you get found out pretty quickly and you get made to look silly very quickly.

“We just focus on the things that are most important, our match-ups, how they play and how we can beat them.”

And the lessons came thick and fast from the first round mauling.

"I think we needed that to be honest. I’m glad it happened so early in the season that we could have enough time to fix the things we needed to," she said.

“They came out here with a point to prove and they did. We got made to look pretty silly. We’ve definitely reviewed that, and I think the girls are pretty adamant about that not happening again.

“You can get lessons from close wins, but you never really take as much out of it as you do over a loss.

“I think it’ll be a really tough game, a fair contest. I think it’s going to be the hardest game of footy I’ve ever played.”