How the Lions tore the grand final apart in 15 minutes of pain for the Swans

After last year’s grand final defeat, Chris Fagan asked his players to pen their regrets to paper and place them in a time capsule to be opened before this year’s finals series.

Time capsules are meant to be opened after decades to show how much the world has changed in that time. The Brisbane Lions unlocked theirs within 12 months. The change they discovered was equally profound.

The memories that haunted them on this grand stage a year ago have been exorcised. In their place are fresher moments, happier moments, they will cherish forever: Eric Hipwood’s impossible goal from the boundary, Cam Rayner’s speccy, Joe Daniher’s celebratory snap ... the list goes on.

Sure, grand final victories by narrow margins are exhilarating for the release of tension and emotion on the siren, but these are the ones that dreams are made of. Seldom can 23 footballers live out the best day of their football lives and know it at the time.

Easy comes from hard, and the hard work was done before half-time. In the wild, the spectacular part of the lion’s hunt is in the chase, and the kill is painstakingly long.

The 15 minutes that destroyed the Swans, featuring a star turn from ‘Big Joe’

In this game, the kill was swift. The Lions needed just 15 minutes of the most violent, aggressive yet skilful football seen this year to tear apart the Swans, the minor premiers reduced to also-rans and embarrassed on the sport’s biggest stage yet again.

Three years ago, Melbourne went bang, bang, bang to set up their historic victory in Perth. The Lions’ shock and awe lasted longer – but had the same effect, mortally wounding their rival.

The common thread in each goal was the might and power of the Lions, and the meekness of the Swans.

It started with Daniher, who could have been playing in his final game (if the pre-game speculation was to be believed), and finished with the youngest player in the team, Logan Morris.

Daniher’s goal – a cool set shot from 35 metres out – should not be possible in a grand final, when the pressure should be at its highest. With no defender closing down his space, Charlie Cameron landed a deft touch kick on a handkerchief for an unguarded Daniher to run on to.

From the next centre bounce, Daniher – his team’s second ruckman – bullied a specialist Brodie Grundy, taking possession and booting inside 50 where Callum Ah Chee marked in front of Nick Blakey.

As a ruckman, the 202-centimetre Grundy does his best in the follow-up work on the ground, which is a nice-to-have though not essential, but teams take a cue from their biggest player, and he let them down.

Blakey is normally cool under pressure but, under the Lions’ unrelenting onslaught, his mind was foggy. Instead of taking Harry Cunningham’s hot-potato handball, tucking the ball under his arm and running, he hacked a blind kick straight to Jarrod Berry. Pat Cummins could not have set a field better.

Berry bore a disproportionate amount of blame for the Lions’ loss last year but, with the chance to atone his kick, was perfect to the point that it sailed straight above the mark between the posts.

The 30 seconds between goals gives the broadcaster the chance to run ads and recoup cash. The Swans needed more time to regroup.

The introduction of the six-six-six rule allows goals to come in a rush. Shellshocked, the Swans gave up another centre clearance and with the ball travelling at such speed they could not set up their defence to find the intercept mark needed for relief.

Hipwood’s hippy, hippy fake and goal from ‘the impossible angle’

Cameron reacted quickest to run on to the crumb, sparking a chain of handballs that ended with Eric Hipwood, whose fake deceived both Dane Rampe and himself. When his drop punt from just inches inside the boundary threaded the narrow goal face, the game was all but done – the accidental goal from the impossible angle.

“When that went through, I knew it was our day,” Hipwood said. “To be honest I should have kicked it to the top of the goal square.”

Josh Dunkley was on the receiving end of a similar barrage in 2021. It was not until after the game that he saw the resemblance

“I thought we were playing the way we wanted to,” Dunkley said. “I was saying to the boys at the time, ‘make sure we stay in the moment’.

“Momentum swings are huge and you want to make sure you’re on the right end of it.”

The half-time margin of 46 points was poignant. In the opening round, the Lions led by this margin in the second quarter against Carlton then fell into a two-month-long slumber when their season appeared to fall into disrepair.

The writing was on the wall well before the Lions had their claws around the Swans’ necks.

The key to beating the Lions is by denying them space to chip the ball around for uncontested marks. One hundred marks is the magic number. They had 46 by quarter-time.

The effect of this was twofold. By controlling the ball, it worked over the Swans’ defence, who spent their petrol unsuccessfully closing space. When the inevitable gaps came, the Lions moved the ball at speed to their dynamic forward line, which is threatening in the air and on the deck.

The pin-ups of the small forward brigade

Cameron is the poster boy of their small forwards but Callum Ah Chee and Kai Lohmann, with four goals each, have been their pin-ups this September. Both men, whose importance grew after Lincoln McCarthy’s season-ending knee injury, played career-best games.

Will Ashcroft watched on 12 months ago. On Saturday, he was the best afield, a worthy Norm Smith medallist for his work inside and outside. The medal could as easily have gone to Lachie Neale, the heartbeat of a midfield which shredded the Hollywood combination Isaac Heeney, Chad Warner and Errol Gulden.

For Sydney, this was yet another grand final Swan dive. Since their epic win in 2012, they have lost four grand finals by margins of 63 points, 22, 81 and now 60 – handy totals for a top order on Boxing Day but humiliating at this venue’s other special day.

The most resilience shown by those in Swans colours were by the fans in the Shane Warne Stand, who had their hands up to shield the sun instead of covering their eyes so they did not witness the bloodshed.

The review of this meltdown will be as painful as the others. The selection intrigue leading into the game hovered on Callum Mills’ hamstring, but Logan McDonald’s ankle proved the bigger issue.

McDonald, who had a noticeable hobble in the warm-up, spent the second half on the bench, subbed out after just one disposal. Selection, though, would not have made a difference of 60 points.

Heeney, Warner and Gulden had possession tallies of 12, nine and eight respectively to half-time. The Swans’ contest work was again found wanting, as it was two years ago when they were made to look like boys against Geelong’s men.

The most prolific scoring team in the home-and-away season, the Swans’ forward team managed just nine goals. McDonald, Joel Amartey and Hayden McLean turned in stinkers, but the delivery was deplorable.

Luke Parker may as well have had one hand tied behind his back in his duel with Harris Andrews, such was the Swans’ ability to kick the ball where they should not have.

For Parker, who could have played his last game for the club, this was a fourth grand final defeat, as it was for Rampe and Jake Lloyd, who have equalled some of the Geelong stars of the Malcolm Blight and Gary Ayres era.

The unofficial theme for the Swans heading into the game had been to get the job done. If they adopt the Lions’ motivational time capsule, theirs will be overflowing with regret.

As for the Lions, many had thought their premiership clock had ticked past high noon. It matters not now. It’s days like these when time stands still.

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