gawk - Print second last column/field in awk

Question

I want to print the second last column or field in awk. The number of fields is variable. I know that I should be able to use $NF but not sure how it can be used.

And this does not seem to work:

awk ' { print ( $NF-- )  } '

question from:https://stackoverflow.com/questions/65871963/filter-mac-address-using-a-bash-script

Answer 1

awk '{print $(NF-1)}'

Should work