West Coast Eagles ruckman Dean Cox says the team thought at the start of the year that they could make a serious tilt at the flag in 2005.The first-time All-Australian - whose skills are so good he's more like a very tall midfielder than a traditional ruckman - says the team was always confident of doing well."Yeah, I suppose - we finished eighth for three years in a row, and bowed out in the first round of the finals, so we knew that we had to improve," he said."And every side does it over the pre-season - if we stuck to the game-plan, and played with the intensity that Woosha (coach John Worsfold) wanted us to, that we could finish top four."And once that happens, you never know what's going to happen."We've been in the fortunate situation where we did win a lot of games early, and the players did change their focus to make sure that we did make this season one that would count."Cox said the team was well aware that all the good work up until now wouldn't count for much without a good performance on Saturday."You've just got to make the most of your opportunities - you never know what's around the corner."Some great players have played 10 or 15 years of AFL football and never get the chance to play in a grand final, so the boys will be making the most of it."Most of the boys would have thought in their junior days that they could one day play on the MCG on the last day of September, and it's finally come."The group's worked very hard for it, and day will be here very shortly."The playing group knows that the job's still there to be taken care of - we've worked hard all year to get into a position where we can play in a grand final, and now that we're here, we don't want to let it slip."The players are excited, but extremely focussed on the job at hand."