Goran Ivanišević used to speak of the “Three Gorans”, the unholy trinity that tortured him, bewildered others and merged and mashed in one fortnight in 2001 to produce a Wimbledon title.

Bad Goran was the raving lunatic who’d smash rackets and lose to qualifiers. Good Goran was the big-serving, sure-volleying man whose ceiling was usually the quarter-finals. Emergency Goran was the man possessed who’d emerge from a rain delay a completely changed player, who’d fire down aces like mortar shells, and who was capable of annihilating any tennis player in the world.

There has always been a touch of that about Luke Beveridge’s Western Bulldogs. The Bad Bulldogs walk on to the football field like ghosts, are smashed in the contest, and leave all the heavy lifting to their captain. The Good Bulldogs hunt from pack to pack, strip the ball back off the opposition, handball laterally to create space and relieve pressure, and move the ball quickly and decisively to their crop of star young forwards.

The Emergency Bulldogs take the best of the Good Bulldogs, and add almost a spiritual quest, a missionary zeal, a short campaign where everything just flows, where no matter where they are on the ladder they look like the best team in Australia. It only lasted a month in 2016, but a month was enough. In 2021, the Emergency Bulldogs were quarantining, being shunted from state to state, speaking like yoga instructors and working like stevedores.

The Dogs find themselves in a familiar position this weekend. They have the second-best percentage in the competition. Their best player may well be the All-Australian captain. They’ve knocked off most of the major contenders. Their midfield is ferocious and peerless on its day. Their forward line is capable of slamming on big scores like no other team.

But there’s every possibility they won’t make it. They have to beat one of the in-form teams in the competition, an opponent they have considerable history with, an opponent that brings pressure like no other, an opponent with at least two home finals at stake. Unlike the Dogs, you know exactly which Giants team is going to turn up.

At least their destiny is in their own hands. Last year, for the second year in a row, their finals fate was wedded to Carlton. They beat Geelong and then stewed for 24 hours. They gathered on the Sunday. They sipped their waters and pointed the Bulldog bone at GWS, who had everything to play for. They watched a crackerjack first half. They watched Carlton, who would finish fifth no matter what happened, take their foot off the pedal. They watched the Giants skip away to a five-goal win, and sink their season.

In the end, it was the losses to Hawthorn in Tasmania and West Coast at Docklands that did them in. With cows grazing in the background, Tim English, looking as always like he should be solving mysteries in a Famous Five book, completely fluffed a kick in. He had a fine season, but this was his Benny Hill moment. It was nothing compared to what they dished up against West Coast a week later – the quintessential Bad Bulldogs on display. That’s what be will tattooed on the minds of the Bulldogs’ supporters who head to Ballarat on Sunday. The rest of us can marvel at their captain and their young forwards. But the fans know how quickly it can all flip.

If the Bad Bulldogs turn up, you can bet Beveridge will cop the brunt of the criticism. He really can’t win either way. When they smash teams, his detractors say “see, that’s what you should be doing with that amount of talent”. When they lose, it’s down to his stubbornness, his weirdness, his unwillingness to come down from the clouds. Ultimately, they hate him because he won’t play their game. The AFL media ecosystem is predicated on picking fights, and then making up and moving on. But that’s not his way. And he makes himself an easy target because of it.

There’s another scenario – they don’t need Emergency Bulldogs on the weekend. Good Bulldogs is enough. Bontempelli, Libba, Darcy, a competitive ruck, a cohesive backline – it’s enough. You can usually tell within a few minutes whether the Good Bulldogs have turned up. If they do, this finals series will be all the more interesting and unpredictable for their presence.

• This is an extract from Guardian Australia’s free weekly AFL email, From the Pocket. To get the full version, just visit this page and follow the instructions