I still maintain that even with a fully fit side, we wouldn't have got within 10 goals of Geelong in the 2007 GF.
We'd won games, but our play was nowhere near as good as it was in 2006. We over-possessed the ball (setting a then record in our game vs Carlton where we had 469 possessions), and I don't think our top players were as good as they were in 2006.
Getting Cousins back helped us, but we lost games that we should never have lost (home game losses to St Kilda and Brisbane), and you don't win the premiership against a rampaging Geelong team if you're not on the top of your game.
That we did so well (relatively) in our finals was the biggest miracle of all. I still shake my head thinking how a midfield of Stenglein, Adam Selwood, Matt Priddis and Jamie McNamara managed to take Collingwood to extra time.
All in all, our season was destroyed in one quarter single handedly by Scott Lucas.