Football pundits are notorious for making some pretty inaccurate prognostications. But seldom have there been predictions as wildly off the mark as those that concerned the first steps of the most recent AFL expansion clubs.
It's 15 seasons ago now that Gold Coast entered the competition in 2011, while GWS is in its 14th season after joining the fray the following year.
Just how teams full of veterans, some journeymen and a huge catalogue of talented but incredibly raw teenagers were supposed to take the competition by storm was anyone's guess, but they didn't, despite the laughable suggestions about the Giants in particular winning three or four premierships in a row.
Indeed, until now, we've never come even remotely close to dealing with both expansion teams at once as an on-field AFL force. But perhaps, in 2025, that moment really has finally arrived.
The Giants always looked likely to be major players in this season's pointy end. As per usual. Indeed, GWS has become a finals perennial, reaching the top eight seven times in the past nine seasons.
Gold Coast? Not so much. I'll certainly admit to being one of the healthiest of sceptics when it's come to the Suns' prospects every year, even with Damien Hardwick at the helm and even as Gold Coast started stockpiling (and retaining) as long a roll call of young talent as they've enjoyed at any time in their (let's be honest) pretty dismal history.
They've started plenty of seasons well before, too, even in some of their worst years, so there's no shortage of red flags about big statements.
But there really is something reeking of much more substance about the Suns this season, and it was underlined just as much, if not more, by Saturday's one-point thriller over Adelaide as the two thumping wins over West Coast and Melbourne which had preceded it.
While it's controversial umpiring calls which have stolen the headlines from the Gold Coast win in arguably the best-standard game played so far this season, the Suns' victory was significant in a big-picture sense.
As Hardwick himself noted post-match, this was exactly the sort of game the Suns would have surrendered even 12 months ago. They survived a ferocious bombardment in the final stages but hung on nonetheless.
Just as significantly, it was a win in which some lesser-known (to those outside the Gold Coast camp) Suns had just as big an impact on the result as the usual suspects, the likes of Bodhi Uwland and Ben Ainsworth super for the Suns.
Hardwick would be feeling pretty comfortable right now, too, about the recruitment of "top-ups" in Daniel Rioli and John Noble to supplement all that youthful talent. The pair have both been terrific contributors to Gold Coast's three wins, their rebound and ball use off half-back making this a far more efficient Suns outfit.
Adelaide's super-accurate 14.6 almost got the Crows over the line, but Gold Coast was able to generate 60 inside 50 entries on Saturday despite comfortably losing the clearance count, only breaking even for contested ball, and with Adelaide's bevy of tall forwards booting a dozen goals between them.
There were more signs still, such as Mac Andrew's post-game feistiness with Riley Thilthorpe, or Jed Walter's three goals, the still-19-year-old showing more frequent glimpses of his precocious talents.
Of course Gold Coast has banked these early wins previously before falling in a heap. But with games against North Melbourne then Richmond to follow over the next fortnight, Hardwick and co. have a tremendous opportunity to get the Suns to 5-0 before consecutive meetings with last year's grand finalists Brisbane and Sydney.
That would have them above even their "expansion club" brethren the Giants, though right now only Hawthorn and arguably Adelaide are playing as good or better standard of football than Adam Kingsley's GWS is plying.
The forward structure is dangerous way beyond even Jesse Hogan's capacity to kick a bag given the presence of Toby Greene and options like Aaron Cadman and Jake Riccardi. The defence is a wonderful mix of nullifying capacity and ferocious rebound via the likes of the Lachies Whitfield and Ash, while the continued emergence of both Finn Callaghan and Darcy Jones gives the Giants and overload of run and ball-winning capacity.
You already know those two finals disasters last season, when GWS threw away big leads against the Swans and Lions, burned a hole in coach Kingsley's gut. But you also sense already he's managed to instill that same broodiness in his charges, who look like they have a sizeable point to prove.
So the Suns and Giants, 15 years after they came to pass, really do look ready to strike a sizeable blow to the psyche of the AFL competition, and perhaps most notably, the media which covers the game at such saturated levels these days.
Somehow that flood of coverage has never really extended to either of these clubs, even though one of them has already played in a Grand Final. The popular view that Gold Coast and GWS are box office poison is going to take some time, and plenty more positive results, to eradicate.
But seismic change among those who wield power in the AFL may well finally be at hand. The media will just have to deal with that. And those tipsters who predicted new powers all those years ago? Well, they'll probably just claim they were ahead of the curve.
You can read more of Rohan Connolly's work at FOOTYOLOGY.