CRAIG Starcevich says Brisbane has done a lot of reflecting on its round three loss to Carlton and is confident of rectifying things in Saturday night's preliminary final at Brighton Homes Arena.

The Blues announced themselves as the big risers of 2025 with a 14-point win against the Lions, beating the two-time premiers with swift ball movement and a daring style of play.

Brisbane lost two weeks later to North Melbourne and has since gone on an eight-game winning streak to storm into a sixth consecutive preliminary final.

With a week off to prepare for the match, coach Starcevich said the Lions had looked back to that Sunday evening loss in late August.

"We've done a lot of reflection on that one because that was probably our low point of the year," he said.

"We let ourselves down in a lot of areas. Our pressure wasn't good enough, we let the opposition have way too many uncontested marks, we didn't make our entries (inside 50) deep enough.

"There were all sorts of things we'll need to improve on, but they're the things that have been front of mind this week.

"This is a final. I'd be staggered if our group weren't ready to compete from the get-go."

In some ways it's a classic match-up between the proven champions and the unproven upstarts. Brisbane has been there and done that, while Carlton, littered with carefree young players, is hoping to qualify for the club's second NAB AFLW Grand Final.

Starcevich admitted to still feeling nerves ahead of big matches, knowing how hard they are to qualify for.

"Across our group we've got near on 300 games' worth of finals experience, so playing a really fierce, contested, pressured final is the bit we think is a really strong point of ours," he said.

"We'll need to bring all of that to the table because Carlton is in pretty good form.

"When you face a bit of adversity in finals, I reckon experience comes to the fore.

"You might be behind, or you might be losing the arm wrestle for a little while and just to hang tough and right the ship and get yourself going again.

"That's a really strong trait of our players that they can grit their teeth and get going and it's something we'll need tomorrow."

Brisbane is unchanged from the team that beat Melbourne a fortnight ago, with full-back Jen Dunne overcoming a knee niggle to prove her availability with flying colours.