You can smell it, can't you?

The days have grown longer and the flowers may be blooming, but these signifiers of Spring are all inconsequential to the footballing fanatic.

With the temperature rising, realistically and metaphorically, and the pretenders now separated from the contenders, it can only mean one thing - finals football.

Sure, in a standard season we would only be days away from a do or die clash in front of a packed house at the MCG, but 2020 has proven that tried and true recipes are not to be regarded.

Even though the frenetic home and away season has rounded the bend and passed the post, the job is still ahead of eight clubs in their hunt for the 'Covid Cup'.

With a week off before the season's after party begins, each of the octet of coaches who have received invitations still have chores to perform before the champagne corks can be cracked

From the eighth seed to there first, here are the 2020 premiership contender's ‘to do lists'.

6.
St. Kilda

The Saints runaway victory over GWS in round 18 has granted the success starved club their first finals berth in nine years. Sure, Brett Ratten's flock of fledgling footballers got the job done in the end, but it no doubt came at the expensive of many sets of fingernails in Melbourne's bayside suburbs.

In-between their resounding victory over a rebuilding Sydney in round nine and their final round success, the Saints form flattened. The catalyst for this leveling can be found when analysing their output from forward fifty entries during this period.

In this seven game span, St. Kilda sent the ball into their attacking arc on 299 occasions at an average of 42.7 a game. This was above their season average of 41.3. Their efficiency when heading inside fifty sat at 46.9%, below their 2020 average of 47.7%.
Over this septet of encounters, the Saints scored a combined 407 points at an average of 58.1 per game, including 57 goals at an average of 8.1 a game.
Run these raw numbers through a calculator and you will find that of these 299 entries, only 19% of them ended in goals.

Quite simply, this percentage is far too low.

The Saints did manage to blow some cobwebs out in their win over the giants, but with the screws expected to tighten in the post season, the possibility of another decline will have Ratten's brow wet.