AFL Finals 2022 Melbourne v Brisbane: All the news, analysis and fallout from semi-final clash
The star of Brisbane’s Friday night show Jarrod Berry says there was ‘nothing purposeful’ in the alleged eye-gouging incident. But not everyone agrees. Have your say.
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Former Demon Cameron Bruce has been credited with the game-changing semi-final move that conspired Melbourne to a straight-set September exit at the hands of a brilliant Brisbane Lions.
Bruce, coach Chris Fagan’s midfield lieutenant, demanded Jarrod Berry go to Oliver at halftime after the onballer had broken free of Deven Robertson’s tag to loom as Brisbane’s biggest headache.
The Lions are suddenly one win away from their first Grand Final since 2004 after eliminating powerhouses Richmond and Melbourne with the best two victories in the Fagan era.
“It was a very, very important move and I won’t take the credit for that one. Cam Bruce, who joined our coaching group this year, suggested it at halftime forcefully.
“I took his advice and it ended up being a great move. He was fantastic for us, he played on Clayton Oliver, who was a star of a player, and managed to quieten him, but he won a fair bit of the ball himself.
“I must admit, (Berry) sent me a text on the weekend after could he do the role, and I thought ‘No, we’ll give Dev a go first-up’ and as it turned out he ended up with the role, and did it particularly well.
“We had seven guys with 50 games or less experience tonight. For them to get that experience in a big game in front of a big crowd (was important).”
Fagan had not seen an incident where Berry and Oliver wrestled on the ground in which former Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley said: “(Berry) will be in trouble for it”.
Berry made contact with Oliver’s face with a clawing motion, but would escape with a fine if the incident was graded as careless and one-match if it was deemed intentional.
Berry said there was “nothing purposeful” in the incident.
“It was just a little scuffle in the centre of the MCG you know how it is, it is just part of the contest and part of the mental battle,” the 24-year-old said.
But Melbourne legend Garry Lyon said Berry could be in trouble.
“I don’t want to use the word eye gouge,” he said on Fox Footy.
“But any motion around the eye, the MRO look on it very, very sternly.”
Ex-Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley described it as a “really poor moment” by Berry, while former St Kilda champion Nick Riewoldt said Brisbane would argue that Berry was “defenceless on the ground”.
“You have to take in due consideration that Berry is on his back and Oliver has his arm on his face and his throat,” Riewoldt said.
“Not in a malicious way but you are pretty defenceless in that situation.”
Berry recorded 14 disposals to Oliver’s seven from their 31 minutes opposed in the second half as the Lions snapped their 11-game losing streak at the MCG that dated back to 2014.
The Lion had 22 disposals and four clearances after halftime.
Fagan admitted “we got hooked up into the verbal stuff” too much in the round 23 loss to Melbourne, which was addressed before the elimination final against Richmond.
He said the Demons were “all over us” early but the Lions wanted to hang in because their opponents struggled in second halves.
Melbourne was outscored by 104 points in final quarters after round 11, which was worse than every club except West Coast and North Melbourne.
Spearhead Joe Daniher welcomed a baby on Friday and, along with ruckman Oscar McInerney, is certain to return for Friday night’s preliminary final against Geelong.
Fagan opted not to address the Lions’ players over Daniher’s late withdrawal because he didn’t want to make a big deal out of the omission.
He was elated with the Lions’ pressure and said Cameron Rayner’s late in the fourth quarter “typified the mindset” of his brave Lons.
Brisbane has not played Geelong since round 4, a match which was so long ago Fagan said it mattered little ahead of next week’s blockbuster.
‘Empty’ Dees failed to handle the hype
- Ronny Lerner
Melbourne coach Simon Goodwin has described his team’s semi-final loss to the Brisbane Lions on Friday night as “devastating” and suggested his players struggled to deal with heightened expectation this year following their premiership in 2021.
The stunning 13-point result at the MCG saw the Demons exit the finals in straight sets, and Goodwin said one of the hardest parts about it was not being able to win a flag in front of their home fans after doing so in Perth last season due to the impact of the pandemic in Victoria.
“A lot of work goes into a footy season – that’s from the players to our coaches to our support staff and not only that, but our supporters,” a dejected Goodwin said post-game.
“You know, we did something pretty special last year and we wanted to make sure we came back to the MCG and let them (supporters) feel what we felt and we weren’t able to do that.
“So, yeah, you feel pretty empty at the moment but we’ll lick our wounds and come back better as a footy club.”
After leading by 28 points late in the second quarter, the Demons experienced yet another fadeout after half-time, with Brisbane kicking 11 of 14 goals at one stage to steamroll Goodwin’s men.
It’s a trend that has come to characterise Melbourne’s second half of the season, and Goodwin said they needed to get to the bottom of it over the off-season.
“Clearly to give up nearly 70 points in the second half ... we weren’t able to execute the basics of the game for long enough in the phases that we really value,” he said.
“In finals, generally, your vulnerabilities come out in games and we’ve had some throughout the second half of the year, especially, when we’ve lost games of footy, teams have been able to impact in the second half of games and mowed down leads and it happened again tonight.
“Certainly not a shock in terms of that - that’s been a pretty consistent theme for us when we’ve been beaten.
“We feel like our players are certainly fit enough and it’s a different year for us, we knew heading into this year that expectation would be high, we knew that pressure around our footy club would be high and that’s why it’s really challenging to be successful when you come off what we’ve come off and that’s why not many teams do it (go back-to-back).
“We’ve got to have a look at all our things within our program, whether it be physical, mental, our method ... we’ll unpack our program and we’ll re-pack it again.
“We’ve got to grab this, how it feels today, and go away and rebuild ourselves again and come back even stronger again and that’s the mentality that we’ll be taking as a footy club because that’s what you need to do.”
Wastefulness in front of goal also plagued Melbourne consistently this year, and it conspired against them again against Brisbane as they kicked 11.13, while another eight shots on goal failed to score.
“We leave the door ajar too often (for the opposition),” Goodwin said.
But Goodwin denied his players got ahead of themselves when they won the first 10 games of the year.
“There was no comfortability within our group, we had enough lessons throughout the year,” he said.
During the game, Brisbane forward Lincoln McCarthy appeared to mock Harrison Petty for crying after copping a distasteful on-field sledge from Lions captain Dayne Zorko in Round 23.
Goodwin said he would be “pretty disappointed” if that’s what McCarthy was doing.
“That’s not really our issue, that’s their issue, that’s their footy club, if that’s how they want to act, that’s up to them, that’s not how we act at our footy club,” Goodwin said.
As for the future of young ruckman Luke Jackson, who is being heavily linked to Fremantle, Goodwin said: “We’ll have those conversations during the week with Luke. We said we’d give him as much time as we can before he made a decision and I’m sure in the next few days, we’ll find out.”
Match report: Dees dream left in tatters
Melbourne’s dream of back-to-back premierships has been shattered after they squandered a 28-point lead to be sensationally dumped out of the finals series in straight sets.
The Demons had looked like they were heading to a preliminary final against Geelong next week when they led by five goals late in the second quarter, but just like they did against Collingwood (twice), the Western Bulldogs and Fremantle in the home-and-away season, they got overran in the second half.
The Lions completely overwhelmed Melbourne, kicking 11 of the next 14 goals to grab 20-point lead in time on of the last quarter.
The Demons were given a glimmer of hope when back-to-back goals from Harrison Petty and Ed Langdon got them back within seven points with just over two minutes remaining.
But with a minute remaining, Melbourne defender Jake Lever was controversially caught holding the ball by Daniel McStay on the boundary line 40m out from Brisbane’s goal.
And Lever made sure McStay would kick the sealing goal when he took too long to give the ball back and gave away a 50m penalty, turning McStay’s difficult shot into a certainty.
The Demons headed into the game with a mental stranglehold over Brisbane, having won their previous four encounters by an average of 44 points, including a pair of frightful smashings in the space of nine weeks in the second half of this season.
But the Lions turned the tables in magnificent style, producing the upset of September so far to win by 13 points, 14.8 (92) to 11.13 (79), snapping their eight-year losing streak at the MCG which spanned 11 games in the process.
Next week, they face the Cats in a preliminary final, for the second time in three years, at the MCG.
Meanwhile, Melbourne have become the 10th team in the 23-year history of the current top-eight system to squander the double chance, and fourth in the six seasons which have featured the post-season bye.
Brownlow Medal favourite Lachie Neale declared it one of the club’s greatest ever wins.
“That was unbelievable, last week was an amazing game but this week for those boys to turn it around after a slow start. We know our history against Melbourne and it looked dire,” Neale said.
“But so proud of them to turn it around and it was one of the best wins I’ve been involved in for sure.
“I think our pressure rating in the second quarter was a little bit higher than Melbourne’s so we knew we were starting to lift, we could feel the momentum turning a little bit.
“Fages said at halftime we are right in this game, it’s three goals so we just have to keep plugging away and things will turn.
“I thought we had some guys stand up and play some unbelievable roles. Jarrod Berry was one, I thought his second half was something else and I haven’t seen anything like it.
“Eric Hipwood also stood up, their backs have dominated us but our tall forwards brought the ball to ground in the second half and we got to work.
“I think Fages’ message has always been you don’t lose you learn. Our losses to Melbourne were dismal, they were our worst losses of the season and we learnt a lot from those and I thought we put those lessons to good use.
“No-one gave us a chance against Richmond and no-one gave us a chance against Melbourne.
“I feel like we play our best footy when we are the underdogs and we will be the underdogs again next week.”
NO JOE, NO OSCAR, NO PROBLEMS
Joe Daniher didn’t play so he could attend the birth of his child, and No. 1 ruckman Oscar McInerney (concussion) was missing, but Eric Hipwood stood tall in Daniher’s absence to play a matchwinning game with four goals, while Darcy Fort battled manfully in McInerney’s stead, to play a crucial role against Melbourne superstar Max Gawn who appeared to be battling a groin issue.
DEES SQUANDER DOMINANCE AGAIN
Melbourne again dominated contested possessions (156-137) and clearances (51-37), but in a familiar theme for them, failed to capitalise, as they broke down badly too often in attack with the likes of Ben Brown, Jake Melksham and Charlie Spargo all failing to have an impact. It gave Brisbane a chance to get back in the game in the second half, and they took it with both hands. They generated speed on the ball, got on top in the territory battle and their pressure lifted markedly as they deprived Melbourne time and space.
RISKS PAY OFF FOR BRAVE BRISBANE
The Lions were outrunning the sluggish Demons in the second half, and their confidence grew, leading them to take numerous courageous kicks into the corridor, and their decision to back themselves in high-risk situations paid off. Brisbane’s midfield got right on top of Melbourne’s, as Lachie Neale, Hugh McCluggage, Jarrod Berry and Fort turned the tide, while the speed of Brisbane forwards such as Hipwood, Charlie Cameron and Zac Bailey undid Melbourne’s flat-footed defenders.
DEES WASTE CHANCES
Melbourne’s forward efficiency, which dogged them for much of the second half of the year, fittingly proved their undoing in the most important game of the year. After starting the game 3.2, they kicked 8.11 and while eight of their shots on goal failed to score entirely.
SCOREBOARD
DEMONS 3.6 6.8 8.11 11.13 (79)
LIONS 1.3 3.4 9.5 14.8 (92)
LERNER’S BEST
Demons: Petty, Langdon, Petracca, Harmes, Brayshaw.
Lions: Hipwood, McCluggage, Neale, Rich, Berry, Gardiner, Fort.
GOALS
Demons: Pickett 2, Fritsch 2, Neal-Bullen 2, Langdon 2, Melksham, Brayshaw, Petty.
Lions: Hipwood 4, Cameron 3, Bailey 2, McStay 2, Ah Chee, McCluggage, Fort.
UMPIRES
Gavine, Hosking, Meredith
VENUE
MCG
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Originally published as AFL Finals 2022 Melbourne v Brisbane: All the news, analysis and fallout from semi-final clash
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