Basically secured. They were like 3-4 games and percentage ahead of 3rd. Gave themselves a tiny late scare but it's disingenuous to say they were seriously fighting for top 2.They didn't secure the top 2 until the second to last match of the season, though, I thought they were going to drop out of the top 4 after that Port game performance, they came close to losing their position, they were lucky they had non-finalists for their last 3 matches. I can't find any record of a team going with the recent form of 5-5 into a prelim and winning a premiership. The closest I could find is Adelaide with 6-4 in 1998.
So it is an outlier situation, meaning an outlier result is very possible.