What a richly deserved win for the Brisbane Lions, steamrolling the Cats in the second half to storm to their fifth AFL premiership.
They’ve got a fantastic mix of youth and experience, role players and superstars right across the park and they’ll take some stopping next year, too.
To Chris Fagan, Harris Andrews, Lachie Neale and their side – congratulations.
Commiserations to the Cats, but we know they’re not going anywhere.
We’re signing off for now, but keep an eye on our pages in the coming months for plenty on the AFLW and on the AFL draft and player movement front.
Bye for now.
What does a Norm Smith medallist do before the grand final?
When Andrew McLeod came to cast his votes for this year’s Norm Smith Medal, he agreed that Will Ashcroft deserved to equal what he had done: win back-to-back Norm Smiths.
The young Lion is also now two-thirds of the way to doing what Tigers great Dustin Martin did – win three.
Will Ashcroft won the Norm Smith Medal for the second straight year.Credit: Eddie Jim
Ashcroft is neither Martin nor McLeod. You’d call him his own player, except he has a mini-me running around in the same jumper with the same iridescent green boots and lustrous Prince Charming hair – his brother Levi.
Last year it was Levi, not yet drafted, jumping the fence to celebrate a flag with Will. Will had been denied a chance on grand final day the year earlier due to an ACL injury. On Saturday, Levi and Will ran to each other to embrace at the final siren, a shared flag and moment.
“It’s amazing … from an individual standpoint, the work I put in coming off that ACL going through those emotions to get back to this position. To do it with all my teammates and my brother, it’s such an amazing feeling,” Will Ashcroft said.
The most shattered Cat in the rooms after grand final thrashing
By Danny Russell
The pain of losing had spread like a virus by the time the dejected Geelong players found their way off the MCG and into a silent, empty change room.
Coach Chris Scott and Cats CEO Steve Hocking were first down the race, their faces stern and emotionless.
The disappointed Cats watch on at the medal presentation.Credit: Getty Images
Players ambled along behind, listless and broken.
Skipper Patrick Dangerfield carried a child in each arm on a day he had not been able to carry his side. The Superman of the preliminary finals had found his kryptonite in Brandon Starcevich.
Bailey Smith stopped to hug family members waiting by the door. He had lost his headband late in the game, but had lost his mojo well before. He didn’t speak during the embrace.
Shannon Neale also hugged waiting family. It was welcome comfort for the big forward after he had been manhandled by a dominant Harris Andrews for the majority of the afternoon.
Fagan reveals the inspiration behind the Lions’ premierships
By Jon Pierik and Russell Bennett
As emotions spilled out in the bowels of the MCG on Saturday night, Lions coach Chris Fagan revealed his group had embraced a famous Nelson Mandela quote as part of their journey to claiming back-to-back premierships and becoming the competition’s benchmark.
The Lions are again the toast of the AFL, having strode to a 47-point win over Geelong before a crowd of 100,022 at the home of football on Saturday.
Lions coach Chris Fagan cops a Gatorade shower.Credit: Joe Armao
The Cats led by a point when midfielder Max Holmes drilled a long bomb less than 14 minutes into the third term, but the uncompromising Lions booted 12 of the next 17 goals, including the final three of the third, to take charge.
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This victory added to their success against Sydney in last year’s grand final, and was the club’s fifth flag this century – the most in the competition.
A beaming but damp Fagan, having had a Gatorade bucket tipped on him by Dayne Zorko, said a quote from Mandela, the former president of South Africa and anti-apartheid activist, had been crucial to the Lions’ rise – the club having been mired in mediocrity when Fagan took charge in 2016.
“I have got a saying that’s up on our wall – it’s a famous Nelson Mandela quote. We never win. We never lose. We either win or we learn, and that’s the attitude we have tried to take,” Fagan said.
Up there, Snoop Dogg: Superstar rises to the occasion
By Karl Quinn
He had promised a set that was “classic Snoop Dogg”, and the American hip-hop star and merchandising magnet (or is that magnate?) delivered in spades at the AFL grand final pre-game show.
In a 15-minute set, the 53-year-old played snippets of 10 songs from a catalogue that stretches back to 1992, commanding a stage that looked from certain angles like a giant boombox, while several dozen dancers turned the centre square into a riot of colour and movement a little reminiscent of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade.
Snoop Dogg at the MCG.Credit: The Age
Mr Dogg has become such a master of commercial tie-ups – Menulog, 19 Crimes wines, cryptocurrencies, NFTs, mobile phone plans, you name it – that he often seems more brand than musician these days. But on the biggest platform in this country – with an audience of 100,000 in the stadium and something north of 4 million watching at home (a number that doesn’t include those watching in pubs or clubs) – he proved that he remains a pop superstar with serious staying power.
Jeremy Cameron played out the grand final with a broken arm after injuring it in a heavy collision with superstar teammate Patrick Dangerfield shortly before half-time in Geelong’s 47-point loss to Brisbane.
Dangerfield said he heard a “pretty big snap” when Cameron’s right arm appeared to get wedged between the pair’s bodies, and the Cats said after the game that Cameron had suffered a fracture.
Jeremy Cameron played out the grand final with a fractured arm.Credit: AFL Photos
The dual Coleman medallist grimaced in pain, before returning to start the second half sporting a protective arm guard.
Cameron aggravated the injury during an inspirational chase-down tackle of Lion Jaspa Fletcher – which set up a Max Holmes goal and was the last time the Cats hit the lead – before spending more time off for treatment, then returning to play out the match virtually one-handed.
“I heard a pretty big snap during the game,” Dangerfield told Seven.
“It’s one of those things – it’s a grand final, so you do whatever you can.”
Lazarus Lions pull off miracle in a flag with huge ramifications
Deadlocked with their opponents at half-time and purportedly banged-up, the Brisbane Lions have completed one of the game’s most stunning transformations within 22 days to floor the more-fancied Geelong in a grand final that confirmed a northern dynasty.
In a game that went from level to a levelling, Chris Fagan’s Lions reversed the result of a qualifying final in which they were embarrassed by a more physical Geelong, producing seven goals on end and then cantering to a 47-point victory that showcased the skills and panache of the AFL’s most talented team.
Lion power: Brisbane’s Logan Morris and Kai Lohmann enjoy the moment.Credit: Eddie Jim
The turnaround was 180 degrees, culminating in a nine-goal final-quarter avalanche. Few who’d witnessed Geelong’s similar obliteration of the Lions in that prior final, at the same venue, would have projected this outcome.
In the 129 years of the V/AFL, there would not be premiers who have lifted the cup with a deck as stacked against them as Brisbane’s latest back-to-back premiership team. Undeniably, the Lions’ fifth flag (as a merged entity) has been won the hard way.
The Lions overcame close to every difficulty imaginable to win the 2025 flag – injuries, a tougher fixture and a shorter pre-season – and on grand final day an opponent that had enjoyed the saloon passage through to football’s biggest day.
The Lions celebrate on the siren.Credit: Jason South
The 47-point margin suggests a romp, but until time-on in the third quarter, few could have predicted with any confidence where this game was headed.
Not even the most one-eyed Lions supporters could have foreseen the torrent of goals from their side. Their 11 of 12 majors turned a match with nine lead changes that was shaping as an epic into the grand final blowout we have been accustomed to since the pandemic.
What’s next for the Lions? How premiership defence can inspire unrivalled dynasty
By Nick Wright
Only a few months ago, Dayne Zorko identified who he felt was the Brisbane Lions’ most elite player.
It was not Will Ashcroft, whose grand final heroics against Geelong garnered him his second Norm Smith Medal in as many years – finishing with a goal, 32 disposals, 10 clearances, eight tackles and three goal assists.
Nor was it two-time Brownlow Medal victor Lachie Neale. No, Zorko’s vote went to Jaspa Fletcher, who along with Ashcroft looms as the face of the club’s push to force an unrivalled AFL dynasty.
“I did hear about that; he’s looked after me there,” Fletcher laughed to this masthead.
