Chris Fagan is sure his midfielders have improved since Melbourne left them in their dust in June.
On Friday night, in a fight for top-four status in this year's AFL finals, he'll find out by how much.
The Brisbane coach was relaxed but direct on Thursday ahead of his side's crunch Gabba clash with the defending premiers.
"They've beaten us the last three times and pretty much from half time in the game we played them in the middle of last year they've had a clear advantage over us," he told reporters.
"And that's been mostly (in the area of) contested ball and been a big focus of ours that we've been working on since the last time we played them.
"We have gotten better, the true test will be how much better we've got. That's the key; it's a waste of time talking about anything else."
A 64-point loss earlier this season comes with a caveat given captain Dayne Zorko, livewire Zac Bailey and the promoted Rhys Mathieson did not play.
Fagan hopes they will offer something alongside Brownlow Medal favourite Lachie Neale, who could be tagged like he was earlier this year.
But he said personnel changes were just cosmetic touches to their new-look midfield approach.
"We're different without doing anything (with those three players involved), but tactically we've done a few different things and we've seen our contested-possession differential rise," he said.
The loser of Friday's game faces the likely prospect of dropping out of the top four and losing a valuable second-chance.
Fagan said they'd had the "perfect preparation" by playing against desperate teams across the last month.
"They've thrown everything at us and it's great preparation for tomorrow night and what lies ahead," he said.
"We're all aware of the ramifications.
"We can finish as high as second and low as sixth. It's a crazy round, I can't remember one where everything can change so much.
"It's been 'finals before finals' for a few weeks now and it's even bigger this week, the stakes.
"It'll be an interesting round of footy and we get to go first."
