Fagan’s heroes: Brisbane Lions make amends by mauling Swans in grand final blowout

The Brisbane Lions have franked a six-year period of contention, atoned for a string of near-misses and embarrassed an utterly inept Sydney to win the first grand final between the beacons of the AFL’s northern expansion.

In a game that was projected to be another close encounter in an extraordinary season of cliffhangers, the Lions produced a stunning performance, killing the contest – and probably the second-half television ratings in NSW – with a seven-goal romp in the second quarter that belied each team’s ladder position.

The Brisbane Lions lap up their premiership win.Credit: Joe Armao

The Swans’ resistance was briefer than Katy Perry’s five-song set pregame – a matter of 15 minutes in the opening term – in what was a grand final that reprised the pattern of 2022, when Geelong annihilated the red and whites. This humiliation dented the resumes and reputations of several stars, headed by Isaac Heeney, Errol Gulden and Chad Warner.

The Brisbane victory, which seemed likely in the first quarter and inevitable mid-way through the second, was a triumph for avuncular coach Chris Fagan, who coached Brisbane to an agonising four-point grand final loss to Collingwood last year and had finished top five each year since 2019.

Fagan’s flag mocked a series of shibboleths about the coach and/or the Lions.

The first was that he was too old to coach a premiership and the second – ventilated among some media critics – was that Fagan would founder on the rocks of inadequate tactical acumen.

Leigh Matthews and Chris Fagan embrace moments after the final siren.Credit: Joe Armao

It mocked, too, the primitive idea that coaches must have played at AFL level, as Fagan did not. It was also arguably a riposte of sorts to the turbulence that the Lions mentor had endured since the Hawthorn racism investigation was launched two years ago.

It mocked the theory that a team could not win the flag from outside the top four (despite the Bulldogs’ flag in 2016); it put to bed the view that a team could not win the premiership if they lost the first three games of the season, as the Fagan Lions had.

In the aftermath, Fagan was hugged by the club’s triple premiership coach (and last one in 2003), football legend Leigh Matthews, his staunch defender as a Lions’ board member, before receiving the cup.

In a twist, possibly inspired by Luke Beveridge handing his medal to grounded skipper Bob Murphy in 2016, the Lions co-captains Lachie Neale and Harris Andrews brought their predecessor, Dayne Zorko, 35, on to the dais to have three hands on the cup as it was hoisted.

Lions coach Chris Fagan and co-captain Lachie Neale.Credit: Eddie Jim

“It’s been a season like no other,” said Fagan to the MCG crowd, with most of 100,013 remaining despite the annihilation. “At one stage we were 13th and things weren’t looking good, but we found a way.”

All premiership teams overcome hurdles, this Brisbane team surmounted more than Sally Pearson.

In the hours before the grand final, the Lions might have been distracted by the news that maverick key forward Joe Daniher might retire after the game. In reality, the Lions were saying that this was possible but that Daniher, true to laconic form, had not divulged whether this would happen.

Later, Daniher ducked the media, and it would certainly not surprise anyone if he bowed out.

But the Lions would not be diverted from their mission to atone, having gathered unstoppable momentum on the back of extraordinary finals comebacks over the hapless Giants and Geelong, overcoming a deficit of 44 points against the former.

Fagan became the oldest coach to guide his team to a VFL/AFL premiership and his Lions were the second team to win from outside the top four since the pre-finals’ bye was introduced. It is a small irony that Fagan had been a critic of the pre-finals bye that had seen his Lions upended previously.

Will Ashcroft, the first of a pair of prized father-sons tied to the Lions – his brother Levi will join them next year and is projected to be drafted near pick No.1 – was awarded the Norm Smith, beating skipper Neale and Callum Ah Chee (four goals) for that prize, in a result that underscored what the Lions missed late last season when Ashcroft had a knee reconstruction. Kai Lohmann’s three first half goals were telling, too.

From half-time, the game turned into a carnival for Lions fans – from Brisbane town or old Fitzroy alike – as the margin blew out to 73 by three-quarter-time. Three goals to warrior Luke Parker – who failed to subdue Andrews in his role as defensive forward – ensured the margin (60 points) remained below the 82 points in 2022, in what might well be Parker’s last game for Sydney as he considers a move to North Melbourne.

Will Ashcroft handballs during the grand final. He was later named Norm Smith medallist.Credit: Getty Images

Neale was stiff to miss the Norm Smith Medal. He, as much as Ashcroft, had been the catalyst for a midfield explosion in the second quarter and maintained the rage.

Brodie Grundy had plenty of the ball (22 disposals, 18 contested) but did not impact the game as needed in assisting midfielders to gain clearances and clean ball, given that he was opposed to journeyman Darcy Fort, who had come in for injured Oscar McInerney.

Heeney, outstanding this season and in Sydney’s two previous finals, spent the last quarter in hobbled dejection on the bench with what he confirmed later was a stress fracture in the ankle. John Longmire’s team will have to endure questions about their mettle and whether they had performance anxiety. This is their fourth loss since 2012 in grand finals and third in nine years.

This was a far worse from Sydney than the 2022 rout, given that team was far less seasoned. This side had comparable experience to Brisbane, who scuppered the theory that the Swans would be advantaged by a week’s rest; now, we will wonder if the extra week was a hindrance.

For Longmire, one of the game’s best and most respected coaches, this outcome was his third grand final thrashing – the Swans having been belted by Hawthorn 10 years ago with a vastly different team – and his fourth grand final loss as coach, with a win in the 2012 classic over Hawthorn.

Dane Rampe, deputising for hamstrung and absent skipper Callum Mills, found gracious words for the victors. To recover from last year’s defeat to Collingwood “was an achievement in itself”, Rampe said. “You guys should be extremely proud.”

“I’m sorry we fell short again,” Rampe said, adding that, regardless the Swans should be “proud” they put themselves in a grand final again. Unfortunately, they had not delivered what the game mandated – a competitive effort.

The easiest measure was in the pressure rating. The Swans average about 180 and could only muster 157 up to late in the last quarter. In part, Brisbane’s ownership of the footy – they had 80 more disposals and were plus 70 for marks – rendered Sydney’s pressure obsolete.

Rampe was particularly gracious considering his grand final scoreline, and that of Jake Lloyd, stands at 0-4 now. No fewer than 16 of the 2022 team played in this debacle, and it will be fascinating to see whether scar tissue has developed.

To find inspiration, they can look within, as the Lions did. Or they look to the AFL’s most successful team of 2024, the Brisbane Lions.

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