NORTH Melbourne is chock-full of confidence heading into its second consecutive Grand Final, leaning on an undefeated season and knowledge that it can in fact beat Brisbane.

In week one when the two sides met in a Grand Final rematch, the Roos were still yet to beat the Lions from five starts, and were still smarting from the 2023 Grand Final loss. But after handing Brisbane its biggest ever loss, on its home deck, the monkey's off the back.

"We'd never beaten Brisbane up until that point, so I think it gave our girls a lot of confidence," Kangaroos captain Emma Kearney said to media on Friday afternoon.

"We've just built upon each game throughout the season, (there's) a great belief in our group, we're not so reliant on one or two players like we potentially were in previous years, we've seen tremendous growth in some of our younger player and our senior players leading the way still.

"So yes, it gives us confidence going into this game, but we know that Brisbane are an incredible outfit. This is their sixth Grand Final, call them the underdogs, but I feel like they turn up their best for the Grand Final day. We know we need to be our best to beat them."

Being undefeated this season means the Roos are heading into the decider as the favourites. That isn't lost on Kearney.

"I think last time, not that I was surprised that we made the Grand Final, but we were riding a wave of this momentum, you know, knocking off Melbourne, then Adelaide in the prelim by a point," Kearney said.

"This season, I feel like we belong here, just like Brisbane belong here, and so I think that confidence is a lot different compared to what it was last year. But in saying that, when the ball is bounced, it's going to be high pressure and we know that we just have to be at our best.

"I think we've just been able to grow enormous confidence."

Embracing the underdog tag has come with the territory for Brisbane which, despite being reigning the reigning premier and the most successful club in recent years, is not favoured to win a third premiership.

Part of that comes with that week one loss, while their off-Broadway location has also contributed.

"We got a good lesson early in the year, and we've had another one since, so for us it's been a bit of a journey of growth across the year," Brisbane coach Craig Starcevich said.

"Just to try and improve, there's a fair few things in the first time we played each other this season that we needed to get to work on, and I reckon we've steadily got better. So, from that point of view, I think we've still got a lot of decent footy left in us, and a lot of improvement left in us, which is probably the downside of only having an 11-game season."

For Lions captain Breanna Koenen, who will play in her sixth AFLW Grand Final on Saturday, the ability to deal with that external noise has always been a skill.

"It's just whatever it is. We'll take it on board and we'll fly with it, and yeah, just happen to be the underdogs this year, rightfully so. Obviously, the Roos have had a fantastic season, they're undefeated, so they deserve to be the favourite, and we'll got into it no matter where we are," Koenen said.

Throughout the finals series Brisbane has trailed at half-time in every game, only to hit back after the main break to claim victory. It is built on a hardiness that it has gathered over its nine seasons.

"I think there's some decent resilience within the group to keep fighting, and that's something that our team's pretty proud of. We've got some fight and grit about us, although we didn't show it in round one. So that's sort of not us," Starcevich said.

"I think there's some confidence in preparation. The being there before type thing that you allude to is probably part of it, but there's some decent mental strength there as well, I think."

With a clean bill of health – a far cry from last year's speculation around Dakota Davidson's fitness for the decider – there is a sense of stability across the Lions' list. North Melbourne has also named an unchanged squad, with Kearney making it through her return game last week unscathed, and Tess Craven nursing some soreness, but confirmed to play.

"She copped a heavy, heavy knock to the back, and she's taken a little while to recover from that, but she's good," North Melbourne coach Darren Crocker said.

"She trained really strongly today, and really looking forward to tomorrow."