Brisbane celebration King Kai Lohmann opens up on premiership win
A homesick Kai Lohmann decided against going back to Victoria in late 2023. Now he’s a premiership Lion - and a special moment with the GOAT is the cherry on top.
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In the final moments of Saturday’s AFL grand final, Kai Lohmann found himself soaking it all in on the interchange bench.
The young star had kicked a game-high four goals to help lead his Brisbane Lions to a 60-point premiership victory.
In front of family and friends, the once-homesick country Victorian had returned home – to the home of football – and made his lifelong dream come true.
It couldn’t get any better than this, he thought.
That’s when the GOAT, Leigh Matthews, walked up to him and offered an embrace.
“He’s the Greatest of All Time, so that was pretty cool,” Lohmann said of the moment with Matthews.
“He actually presented my debut jumper (in 2022) so I’ve gotten to know him as the years have gone on.
“I don’t think there was anything to be said. There was just a little nod. He said, ‘Well done Kai’ and I just said thank you. It was a pretty cool moment.”
Lohmann was only four months old when Matthews coached the Lions to the last of their historic three-peat grand finals in 2003.
Four players – Darcy Wilmot, Will Ashcroft, Jaspa Fletcher and Logan Morris – had not yet been born.
But the enormity of the moment was not lost on the young Lion cubs, who all played starring roles in the drought-breaking premiership.
Having lost in agonising circumstances 12 months earlier, Wilmot and Fletcher were rock solid contributors on the game’s biggest stage when many seasoned veterans might have faltered.
Morris – Lohmann’s best friend at the club – saved perhaps his top performance of the finals series for the big dance, booting two goals and pulling down some spectacular contested grabs.
And of course there was Ashcroft, the heir apparent to Lachie Neale who matched his midfield mentor blow for blow to pocket a Norm Smith medal at just 20 years of age.
Brisbane’s rise to perennial premiership contenders under Chris Fagan had been built on the backs of its superstars. But this season’s breakthrough success was a whole of club production, with the quintet of fearless Lion cubs at its core.
“Me and Darcy (Wilmot) were actually speaking about it after the game, we said hopefully four or five more (premierships),” Lohmann joked.
“I think that might be a bit of a stretch but you never know. We have such a great young core group, so much energy. Hopefully we can get a few more, which would be nice.”
It was preliminary final week last year that Lohmann was faced with an agonising decision.
Off-contract at the end of 2023 and nursing a broken collarbone that required a third surgery in two years, the small forward was at a career crossroads.
He was homesick. He wasn’t playing senior football and he had been luckless with injury.
Forward-needy Victorian clubs reached out eager to bring the former No. 20 pick back home and Lohmann would have been well within his rights to walk.
“This is why I stuck around,” he said, clutching the premiership medallion around his neck.
“Got there the hard way and it’s all worth it now.”
In the post-match pandemonium, Lohmann was one of the most popular Lions. From the moment the players were released to mingle with family and fans, he was forever in front of an iPhone camera.
And front and centre to it all was his mum, Brooke.
“I think Mum will be happy with this one,” he said.
“We had some hard conversations last year.
“It’s been a long year and a lot of ups and downs. In my first two years I had three surgeries, I was in and out of the team and had some stuff to work on in my game.
“Fages was so honest in that time. What a human that bloke is. To get here now, it was so worth it sticking around.”
IT’S YOURS NOW: AKER ANOINTS NEW BRISBANE HANDSTAND KING
Brisbane Lions legend Jason Akermanis is ready to crown Kai Lohmann his celebration successor after the young star kicked four goals in the grand final triumph over Sydney.
Lohmann, 21, announced himself to the world with a scintillating performance that channelled the class and poise of the man who filled his boots two decades earlier.
The young Lion kicked his side’s first two goals of the match, had three on the board early in the second quarter and capped his afternoon with a fourth goal late in the match.
Speaking from the Brisbane rooms, Akermanis said he thought Lohmann was destined for a Norm Smith Medal after his first half display.
“He was best on ground at halftime,” he said.
“I love the kid. With any luck someone like him, because he’s a character, will take the handstand.”
The two only met for the very first time the day before, when Lohmann spied Akermanis on the boundary line during the captain’s run and called him over.
“I technically wasn’t even supposed to be there,” said Akermanis.
“Despite what you’d think I still felt a bit awkward.
“I really like Kai and (Cam) Rayner and Zac Bailey and those guys. They remind me of the way I liked to play. I’d been watching them all year but had hardly met any of them.”
Akermanis said Lohmann asked him for advice on what to expect from grand final day.
“We just talked a little bit about the stadium, the wind – if the flags are blowing this way then it’s going this way inside the ground, things like that,” he said.
A special moment for Kai Lohmann 🫶 pic.twitter.com/4hekXhhXpk
— 7AFL (@7AFL) September 28, 2024
With his four goals on Saturday, Lohmann finished his maiden September campaign with nine majors – only one behind teammate Callum Ah Chee who finished the month with 10 goals to his name.
The two small forwards feasted on the Swans but the goal of the afternoon went to key forward Eric Hipwood, who danced around Dane Rampe on the boundary line before slotting an impossible goal.
Almost as if it was pre-planned, Hipwood turned to the crowd and mimicked Akermanis’ famous hand-over-mouth celebration from 2005, when he kicked a similar goal from the pocket against Geelong.
“I spoke to him (Hipwood) about it and he said he didn’t even plan it,” Akermanis said.
“He said ‘I must have been watching your highlights’.
“I was on level 2 (when the goal was kicked) and I had a direct line to him. I’m watching this ball wobble through thinking ‘get in, get in’ and when it did I turned to celebrate and missed (Hipwood’s celebration).
“Then I sat down and my wife goes, ‘did you see that?’ Within 10 seconds my phone was buzzing for the next 15 minutes.
“It was such a great moment – and he’s a Queenslander. I’m just so happy for him.”
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