AFL Brisbane v Melbourne: All the latest news and analysis; Fagan unhappy with ‘unfair advantage’
Chris Fagan is unhappy with what occured after the power outage in Brisbane on Friday night. Melbourne piled on five goals to nil post the break, but the Lions coach believes the Dees had an edge.
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Put us out of our misery. That’s all we wanted as interstate Demons supporters at the Gabba.
After three and a half quarters of carnage: Steven May late out, Max Gawn’s knee, Joe Daniher everywhere … there was a collective groan around the ground – we wanted this to end and quickly.
We just didn’t expect it to be taken quite literally.
We’ve all by now seen the footage of the blackout on the TV coverage. At the ground it was just a state of shock and confusion.
So many questions. What happens now? Are the lights really off? Does Melbourne get two points? I’m going to go the toilet – oh, it’s pitch black in there. Should we get a beer? Ah, of course the bars are shut … and it’s also dark remember? Oh look, the light tower is on fire, quick get your phone out.
After an exciting five-minute period the reality of the situation set in. What do we actually do now? Ah, that’s right – let’s start singing.
One section of the crowd kicked it off a cappella style with the classic “hey baby” then the Gabba stadium staff clicked into gear. Sweet Caroline was well received. Take Me Home, Country Roads was also a fan favourite despite all the trauma Charlie Cameron and that song had given Melbourne fans.
Then came on Horses. Well received? No we were bored by then and the questions again came. How long will this take? Does Melbourne get two points?
Two light towers then lit up to roaring cheers. We have hope. The other two towers didn’t have the same luck. By now the novelty had worn off. People were starting to leave and that seemed like a sensible decision.
The big screen flashed up and said it could take an hour to investigate the problem and that was our cue to hit the country roads, take me home. Or at least to the nearest bar.
Everyone felt safe, there were no safety issues as security guided us out of the Gabba. There was enough light to help us exit, the fire brigade were present, traffic and street lights had also blown but everyone was buzzing.
The new Brisbane NRL derby had dominated Queensland media all week, but the real history was being made on the south side of the Brisbane River.
We got to the pub and in the distance you could hear another big roar. That must be the two other towers coming back to life. The game resumed and the weirdness continued.
The Demons finally decided to show up as everyone swapped their blackout stories. Where were you sitting? When did this last happen? I guess Melbourne won’t get the two points? The final siren sounded and that was it. A night at the Gabba no one expected and won’t forget.
FAGAN SLAMS ‘UNFAIR ADVANTAGE’ AFTER GABBA POWER OUTAGE
Scott Gullan
Brisbane coach Chris Fagan wasn’t impressed the game continued but the AFL has described their response to the Gabba blackout as “perfect”.
For the first time since 1996 an AFL game was plunged into darkness on Friday night with play between the Lions and Melbourne suspended for 38 minutes after all four light towers failed midway through the last quarter.
When the game resumed the Demons kicked five goals in a row to reduce the margin to 11 points.
Fagan was disappointed Melbourne went out to warm-up earlier than his team had been informed was allowed by officials.
“First of all, what I would say, it was a very unusual circumstance that none of us really knew what to do (in),” he said.
“But my feeling post it was that it (an hour’s permitted delay) was way too long. The other thing that happened also was we were told to stay in the rooms, then we found out Melbourne had been on the ground for five or so minutes before we got out there warming up.
“So that was a little bit of an unfair advantage I thought.”
Fagan knew Melbourne would come out swinging after the interruption.
“It was obvious,” Fagan added of Melbourne’s charge.
“I did talk to our players that this is what they’re going to do, and get your hands on the ball and slow the game down a little bit.
“I think they just got on a little bit of a roll and it was a little bit hard to stop.
“Thank goodness we won because we did deserve to win on the night. I thought we did play particularly well until the game stopped.
“I felt like we had them on the ropes to a degree, they were looking pretty tired, it was a really hot night up in Brisbane.
“I think that half an hour break re-energised them a little bit. Probably psychologically it was to their advantage, they had nothing to lose.”
Fagan also called for the maximum delay to be limited to half an hour.
“I think the rule is an hour. I think an hour is too long. I think if a game can’t be reconvened in 30 minutes… especially in the dying stages, then the game should be finalised and the result stands,” Fagan told SEN.
“Hopefully it doesn’t happen very often, but we play football at night under lights, so I suppose it’s always a chance.”
AFL general manager of competition Laura Kane controlled events from her living room and praised the work of the league officials at the ground.
“It rolled out perfectly if you could say that,” Kane said.
“When the lights went out, basically our first priority was to make sure everyone was safe.
“That’s patrons in the stands, umpires, players, staff and all the officials. Once we established that, we very quickly moved to what had happened and can we fix it.
“We have a match manager on the ground, we have on-call contacts and Gil (McLachlan) and others very quickly on the phone to start working through that with the venue. They’d established it was a power outage, we’d lost a couple of towers and I know through the broadcast we could see that small globe had come alight.
“Then working through how we can fix it, how long that might take and a lot of phone calls basically, between a lot of different people.
“Navigating through electricians and other people on the ground the timelines, making sure it was safe and probably the most important thing was to keep people updated.”
While play was set to resume after just over 30 minutes, players were then left standing in their position for several minutes while more phone calls were made from the boundary line.
Kane said they were waiting for final approval from the ground management with the electronic scoreboard one of the final issues to solve.
Investigations are ongoing as to how the power outage occurred, both in Brisbane and at AFL House.
IS GRUNDY READY TO FILL DEMONS’ MAX GAWN-SIZED RUCK HOLE?
Chris Cavanagh and Marco Monteverde
Melbourne ruckman Max Gawn has been putting the Sherrin down the throats of Clayton Oliver and Christian Petracca at stoppages for years.
Brodie Grundy has had the pair as teammates for two official games, plus a couple of summer scratch matches.
With that in mind, you can’t expect the chemistry between Grundy and the Demons’ midfielders to be sky-high.
However, with Gawn now under a major injury cloud, the Demons have some dramas.
After five-time All-Australian Gawn went down in the opening six minutes of Friday night’s match, Melbourne promptly moved two-time All-Australian Grundy into the ruck.
No need to panic when you have two of the best ruckman of the past decade in your line-up, right?
Maybe so.
But at the end of the night, the stats sheet had Grundy down for 45 hit-outs.
Just five of those hit-outs – or 11.1 per cent – went to the advantage of his Melbourne teammates.
Brisbane ruckman Oscar McInerney only had 25 hit-outs for the night, but tapped seven to advantage.
Lions’ back-up ruck Darcy Fort had eight hit-outs to advantage from his 17 hit-outs overall.
The problem for Grundy was that the Brisbane midfielders were reading him like a book, often better than his own midfielder were.
The Lions sharked a high number of Grundy hit-outs, which played into a dominant clearance game for the home side.
Brisbane won the clearance count 60-32, including going 20-10 in centre clearances.
Having kicked a paltry 15 points from stoppages against Port Adelaide the previous week, the Lions scored a whopping 56 points from stoppages – 26 points more than the Demons.
In what was an 11-point game, it was the difference between the two sides.
“I thought Brisbane beat us in a few areas that are really critical to the game,” Melbourne coach Simon Goodwin said.
“Centre bounce clearly put us under a lot of pressure … and our forward 50 stoppages. We go no reward, where down the other end they kicked five goals.”
The hit-outs are just one aspect of the overall stoppage game and Brisbane does have a powerful onball brigade which was led by Lachie Neale, Josh Dunkley and Jarrod Berry.
However, with Gawn to spend some time on the sidelines, Grundy will be a key to success.
“He’s missed 12 months of footy,” Goodwin said of his off-season recruit, who missed last year with knee and ankle injuries.
“I thought his second half was pretty strong. I thought he was actually outstanding, his second half of the game. He took a big step forward again tonight. He’s going to have to shoulder a bit of responsibility, depending on Max. I’m sure he’s the type of ruckman that will relish that opportunity.”
Gawn had a hitout to advantage rate of 33.6 per cent last season.
In his last full season for Collingwood in 2021, Grundy went at a very similar rate of 33.1 per cent – almost three times better than Friday night’s output.
Chemistry with teammates is built over time, but Melbourne does not have a lot of that.
If it dishes up stoppage numbers like that again against Sydney next Sunday, it will be taken to the cleaners.
ROUSING RESPONSE
Brisbane coach Chris Fagan made the point during the week that the Lions did not lose two games in a row for the entirety of the 2022 season.
Fagan’s side was smashed by fans and commentators for what was described as an “insipid” round 1 performance against a team that did not play finals last year in Port Adelaide.
However, the coach stuck to his guns, confident his side would bounce back.
There were just three changes made at the selection table, with Dayne Zorko returning from a hamstring injury, Darcy Fort coming in to provide ruck support against the formidable Gawn-Grundy combination and former St Kilda defender Darrah Joyce coming in for his club debut.
On top of that, there were a couple of tweaks made on the field.
Jarrod Berry went to play a run-with role on Clayton Oliver at the first centre bounce and played onball alongside Lachie Neale and Josh Dunkley for most of the night in what looked a better balanced midfield group.
A hard-hitting Lions review had focused around contested possession wins, which had been a major downfall against the Power.
In that match, Port Adelaide won the contested possession count 150-116.
“If we don’t turn up and play with the required amount of effort then we’re just a pretty ordinary side,” Fagan had said in stinging comments during the week.
“You’re looking to the group to respond this week, because they always have.”
The Brisbane players didn’t let their coach down.
Against Melbourne, they won the contested possession count 151-136, along with the clearance count 60-32 and the inside-50 count 59-54.
The final scoreboard flattered Melbourne.
This was a powerful response from Brisbane – against another top-four contender.
WILLING HIMSELF
Veteran AFL talent ambassador Kevin Sheehan called it last October, more than a month out from the national draft where Will Ashcroft was selected as a father-son by Brisbane at pick two.
“Ashcroft is going to be a good player straight away. No doubt about that,” Sheehan said.
“He’s going to be good enough to be in their side and really contributing.”
By the lofty standards the prolific onballer set in his final season of underage football last year, his round 1 performance against Port Adelaide was relatively subdued.
Ashcroft logged 13 disposals and one goal on debut as part of a Lions midfield that struggled in a hefty 54-point loss to Port Adelaide.
However, in a slightly different role against Melbourne on Friday night, the son of three-time Brisbane premiership player Marcus Ashcroft starred as brightly as anyone at the Gabba.
In a performance that is almost certain to land him a round 2 AFL Rising Star nomination, Ashcroft racked up 31 disposals (15 contested), nine clearances, five score involvements and one goal.
Let’s not forget that this is a player who doesn’t celebrate his 19th birthday until May.
The Sandringham Dragons has his L-plates on but, aside from his youthful looks, you wouldn’t know it.
Ashcroft started on a wing against Melbourne’s Lachie Hunter on Friday night, after spending more time as an onballer in his debut.
He attended just eight centre bounces for the night but still found a way to gather more football than any of his teammates.
Ashcroft is clean and composed beyond his years with ball in hand and his football smarts are off the charts.
He gets to the right spots, tries to ensure every touch he has counts, follows up contests with multiple efforts and is clever with his use of tap ons.
Ashcroft’s nine clearances were the equal-most of any player on the night and his 31 touches was topped only by Melbourne ball magnet Clayton Oliver (37 disposals).
Brisbane has a serious player on its hands and there is more good news on the way for Lions fans.
Keep an eye on younger brother Levi Ashcroft, who looks to be on a similar trajectory.
He will play with the Sandringham Dragons in the Coates Talent League as a bottom-age player this year and is eligible to join Brisbane as another father-son selection in 2024.
Gawn could extend darkness for Dees after mad Gabba blackout
Melbourne is hopeful it won’t be lights out on Max Gawn’s season after the inspirational captain suffered a knee injury in a match which was suspended due to a blackout at the Gabba.
Brisbane survived a late fightback from the Demons after a final term that lasted almost 70 minutes.
The match was suspended for 38 minutes after light towers at the ground went out with 12 minutes remaining on the clock in the final term.
The Lions held a 40-point lead when play resumed, before the Demons kicked the final four goals of the game to almost pinch an unlikely win.
Brisbane held on for an 11-point win in the end, bouncing back from a horror Round 1 loss to Port Adelaide.
The final siren sounded in the fourth quarter 69 minutes and 54 seconds after the first bounce to start the term.
The blackout brought flashbacks to a similar situation when Waverley Park lost power during St Kilda’s clash with Essendon in Round 10, 1996.
The other big story of the night was a knee injury to Melbourne captain Max Gawn in the first quarter, who will have scans on Saturday.
The 183-game veteran and five-time All-Australian came from the field in the opening minutes of the match and had his hands on his head as he was taken down to the rooms for assessment by medical staff.
He had suffered the injury at a centre bounce when teammate Jack Viney went to ground and accidentally fell across the ruckman’s left leg.
The Demons were last night hopeful that Gawn had not suffered a season-ending ACL injury, despite the ruckman looking devastated throughout the rest of the night.
Melbourne football boss Alan Richardson said at halftime the club would await scans on Gawn’s knee before determining the extent of the injury.
“Clearly (he has) a sore knee. We don’t know much more really,” Richardson said.
“I know that there is an image going around that there is an image going around that suggests that he’s feeling really down and that leads to potential ACL stuff. That’s not the case.
“We are going to have to scan it. Our doctors are saying that he feels reasonable. We will have to wait until we get scans.”
Gawn, 31, missed the entire 2012 season after he tore both his meniscus and ACL in his right knee during pre-season.
He also suffered an ACL injury on his right knee during his draft year with TAC Cup side Sandringham Dragons in 2009.
However, in the past two years Gawn has missed just two games through injury and led the Demons to their 2021 premiership.
Melbourne recruit Brodie Grundy — himself a two-time All-Australian — was promptly moved into the primary ruck role after Gawn’s injury last night.
Alan Richardson says the Demons will need scans to determine the damage to Gawn. Says the dejection in the vision of Gawn doesn’t necessarily indicate the severity of the injury or ACL damage. Says Gawn and doctors feel “reasonable†about his prognosis. https://t.co/QeXvNDtOlT
— Jon Ralph (@RalphyHeraldSun) March 24, 2023
However, Tom McDonald and even star midfielder Christian Petracca were also called upon as back-up ruckmen.
Demons key defender Steven May was a late withdrawal from last night’s match after failing to meet the required speed markers in a fitness test on his calf.
Melbourne is hopeful May will return against Sydney next Sunday.
Dark, dark night for the Demons
The lights went out at the Gabba on Friday night, but not before Melbourne captain Max Gawn suffered a potentially serious knee injury and the Brisbane Lions returned to winning form.
With the Lions leading by 40 points in the 13th minute of the final quarter, there was a power failure at the Gabba.
The ground’s light towers went out as 12 minutes remained in the match.
A delay of almost 40 minutes followed, and while the Demons showed some late fight with five successive goals after the restart, the Lions completed a 14.9 (93) to 13.4 (82) win and bounced back in style after being smashed in the opening round by Port Adelaide.
While the Lions celebrated their return to form, which included a four-goal haul from Joe Daniher, the Demons were left devastated after disaster struck in the sixth minute when their inspirational leader Gawn came unstuck in the centre square.
Gawn’s left knee was struck in an unfortunate piece of friendly fire from teammate Jack Viney.
A shattered Gawn headed down the Gabba tunnel, with the Demons — who were also without late withdrawal Steven May — soon after activating their 23rd man, Jake Melksham, to replace the dual best and fairest winner.
There were immediate fears that Gawn had torn his anterior cruciate ligament as he sat forlornly in the dressing-room with his left knee heavily iced.
But Demons general manager of AFL football performance Alan Richardson was hopeful it was instead a medial ligament injury.
“We’ll just have to wait until we get scans,” Richardson said.
The only blemish on Brisbane’s night was a shoulder injury that forced Jarrod Berry off late in the fourth quarter.
IMMEDIATE RESPONSE
The loss to the Power put the Lions under immediate scrutiny despite an almost perfect pre-season.
Questions were asked about Brisbane’s attitude and whether the Lions had got ahead of themselves.
What the Lions needed was a swift response, particularly in front of their loyal fans at the Gabba.
And Brisbane supporters got what they deserved, with the Lions blowing away the Demons in a memorable first-quarter display
The Lions kicked six goals to Melbourne’s two in an opening-quarter blitz and led by 25 points at the first break.
Former Brisbane star Luke Hodge praised the Lions’ “intent” and “attitude” and it was obvious the Queenslanders had a point to prove.
Lions legend Jonathan Brown told Fox Footy: “Brisbane did to Melbourne what Port Adelaide did to Brisbane last week.”
GREAT DAYNE
He’s not Brisbane’s skipper anymore, but Dayne Zorko led from the front in an inspirational return from injury.
Zorko, who gave up the Lions’ captaincy last month, missed round 1 because of a hamstring injury that also ruled him out of Brisbane’s pre-season wins over Sydney and Geelong.
Pre-match, Lions coach Chris Fagan spoke of the “energy” Zorko would bring in his return, and the man they call the “Magician” had the Gabba crowd on an immediate high with his high-impact start.
Starting in the half-forward line, Zorko added some much needed bite to Brisbane’s play.
By quarter-time he had eight disposals and a goal. He also kicked a memorable third-quarter goal in Brisbane’s fast start to the second half.
Zorko — who finished with 22 disposals — was given a well-earned early shower and replaced in the fourth term by Brisbane’s sub Dev Robertson.
“He’s been the spirit of this club for a long time,” Brown said.
SCOREBOARD
Lions 6.2 8.4 13.5 14.9 (93)
Demons 2.1 5.2 7.3 13.4 (82)
GOALS
Lions: Daniher 4, Cameron 2, Bailey 2, Zorko 2, Berry, Ashcroft, McInerney, McCarthy
Demons: Brown 4, Fritsch 3, McDonald, Petracca, Neal-Bullen, Hunter, Chandler, Oliver
BEST
Lions: Zorko, Ashcroft, Daniher, Bailey
Demons: Fritsch, Brown, Oliver, Lever
MARCO MONTEVERDE’S VOTES
3. Dayne Zorko (Lions)
2. Will Ashcroft (Lions)
1. Ben Brown (Demons)
Crowd: 30,047
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