AFL: Charlie Cameron bares his teeth as Lions hunt first AFL flag in two decades

All Charlie Cameron wanted for Christmas was his two front teeth. And another shot at an AFL grand final. The Brisbane Lions’ talisman will bow to no-one at the MCG on Saturday.

Charlie Cameron of the Lions, who are making their second consecutive grand final.

Charlie Cameron’s real name is Charles. Charlie is a suitable moniker for the cheekiest and most mercurial player in the AFL grand final and yet he’s such a royally great figure I reckon we should call him Charles. His impact on the Brisbane Lions is aristocratic and profound.

Charles Cameron. Suits him. All bow. It was Charles Cameron who wore No. 23 and orange boots in last year’s grand final. With five minutes on the clock at the trembling MCG, in such a nerve-shredding atmosphere the clock itself couldn’t look, Charles Cameron rolled a loose, awkward ball along the carpet with his spidery fingertips. He swooped and scooped it up. Kicked a running, off-balance goal so exciting you thought you had discovered the meaning of life. Charles Cameron clenched both fists, sprinted in manic celebration, knees pumping high as the sky, pounding his chest and roaring so loudly he might have drowned out the din of 100,024 thundering spectators. All bow.

A shattered Cameron after the siren sounds at the 2023 AFL Grand Final where Collingwood defeated the Brisbane Lions by 4 points at the MCG. Picture Lachie Millard

The Lions led by two points. Then lost by four. Charles Cameron went to his haunches, breathless, inconsolable after giving his heart soul, blood and lungs to the premiership tilt, losing two front teeth in the process. All Charles Cameron wanted for Christmas was a couple of new pearly whites, which he received via major surgery, and the opportunity to avenge one of the worst experiences in an AFL player’s life. A narrow defeat in a grand final that left Charles Cameron with head solemnly bowed.

Flash forward to Saturday night’s thriller of a preliminary final at the MCG. The Lions had trailed Geelong by 25 points. Which was immaterial given their revival from a 44-point deficit against GWS the previous week, and now they were a single point in arrears. Noah Answerth had the ball on halfway and employed the soundest Lions’ tactic of all. Kick it to Charles Cameron.

He was caught in a rough, grappling contest with two Cats’ defenders. Charles Cameron won it, if only just, and the ball spilt over to Callum Ah Chee. Ah, gee, he landed the crucial major while Charles Cameron clutched at his face, perhaps counting his teeth again, after being clobbered in the fight. His biggest impact hadn’t been one of his freewheeling, highlight-reel individual moments; it had been getting down and dirty and playing tough for a teammate’s goal.

“For us to kick a goal from that contest was unreal,” Charles Cameron said ahead of Saturday’s grand final against Sydney Swans. “There are moments in games to stand up and try to win the contest. It comes down to the little things. You want to play good in big games.”

You want to play good in big games. Great line. King Charles is the Lions’ answer to the Swans’ dynamic duo of Isaac Heeney and Tom Papley. He can do what they do, which is saying something, and which is to say he can turn a premiership decider on its head. He has an elite skill set. And a hellbent desire to win. He is to the Lions what Allan Langer was to the Brisbane Broncos; he’s to the Lions what Wally Lewis was to the Queensland State of Origin team. He is brilliant and beyond. A Charles Cameron goal is worth more than six points. It’s worth adrenaline and belief and momentum to all around him. Every great sporting team has its singularly inspiring, ultra-gifted, mood-setting talisman and for the Lions, the underdogs against the Swans, that man is Charles Cameron.

Cameron and the Lions will have to knock off the AFL’s best team to claim a first flag in 20 years.

Even if you cheer, cheer, the red and the white, honouring the name by day and by night, you wouldn’t mind a headline moment from Charles Cameron on Saturday arvo. The only thing fake about him is the front teeth. He came off second best in a brutal collision with Richmond’s Trent Cotchin last season, spitting blood, toothless against the Tigers. Hence the sparkling, whiter-than-white choppers he displays these days.

“I was a bit worried with the teeth missing and having, not nightmares, but just your reaction to having another contest like that,” he said. “I had a patch of six weeks (last season) where I wasn’t playing up to the standard I had to set myself … I think I was worrying too much.”

Now? Not a worry in the world. Once upon a time, he saw an Instagram clip of the NFL’s New Orleans Saints celebrating by revving the throttle on the handlebars of their imaginary motorbikes. He copied them and created the AFL’s most iconic celebration. Again, regardless of loyalties at the MCG, where the Swans chase their first premiership in 12 years, and the Lions hunt their first in 21 years, who doesn’t want to see Charlie on his invisible Harley?

“I found a clip on Instagram and I’ve just brought it out of the wood work, I guess,“ Charles Cameron told the Lions’ podcast, The Roar Deal. “They do it off one leg and I haven’t done that. Everyone makes fun of me but that’s my thing now. I’ll stick with it when I kick goals on the run. It’s a little bit of fun and I’m just trying to get everyone a little excited.”

Mission accomplished. Ah, gee, there’s a thousand reasons to get a little excited about the AFL grand final. The tremulous sense of occasion; a venue big and sprawling enough to house the Pickles’ and the Lambs’ in Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet; the enormity of the stakes because as Jimmy Barnes sang, there ain’t no second prize; and the appearance of Charles Cameron. All bow.