In additional than 160 years of Australian Guidelines soccer, there have most likely been higher video games than the preliminary ultimate traditional that unfolded on the MCG on Saturday afternoon.
There have most likely additionally been crazier, extra dramatic finishes than the frantic ultimate three and a half minutes as Geelong and Brisbane threw all the things, together with the kitchen sink at each other.
However I can’t consider many who supersede the previous, and none that surpass the latter. This was a match for the ages, a privilege to witness and a thrill to jot down about, and a charming reminder that our sport is peerless amongst sports activities in the case of the spectacular.
That is the story of 210 seconds of thrills, spills, mind fades, bonkers moments and a number of other of the clutchest moments you will note, that left the Lions grand ultimate sure and the Cats left to rue what may need been.
It’s with that period of time left on the clock that the primary signal of the drama that’s to return occurs: Josh Dunkley, below heavy stress inside Brisbane’s defensive 50, thunders a protracted, excessive wobbling ball off the left foot that appears destined to return again with curiosity in seconds, as so many groups have discovered towards Geelong.
Not this time. This time it’s Cam Rayner, a fairly however menacing presence all night, launching onto the again of Jake Kolodjashnij to tug down the type of mark that possibly a handful of gamers within the competitors might produce – or would have the gall to aim – at this stage of a sport with such excessive stakes.
What follows is Brisbane to a tee; the supply of all that’s good a couple of facet with as a lot expertise as any group within the competitors, blended in with an inevitable frustration about their limitations, each bodily and psychological.
Because the Lions stream ahead previous Rayner, Zac Bailey makes a mad sprint proper up the center of the MCG, screaming for the ball. He’s within the sort of open area that makes you instantly dread a entice, principally as a result of a possibility like this merely needs to be too good to be true… proper?
Rayner has no such reservations, even making so daring as to direct his kick in entrance of Bailey, eschewing the protection of an uncontested mark for the chance of higher rewards with the riskier possibility.
It means Bailey gathers some 70 metres from objective, Tom Stewart frantically making an attempt to make up floor behind him, Jack Henry instantly in entrance of him, and Charlie Cameron one out with Zach Guthrie as the one pair of gamers inside Brisbane’s 50, with Guthrie certainly wishing he have been wherever else on earth.
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The share play might be to whack the ball in there right away, and again Cameron’s tempo, guile and smarts to supply the products. Bailey’s ok, and the Lions’ connection ahead of the ball usually sharp sufficient, to aim to hit him up outright, whether or not drawing him up the sector with a move or making an attempt to get him out the again of Guthrie.
However Bailey has grander plans. You may see it in his eyes as Seven’s digicam zooms in on him. Earlier than he even executes it, you simply know he’s going to aim to baulk Henry, making it a two on one scenario inside 50 and an all however sure objective.
This, although, is a bridge too far, a destiny Bailey usually succumbs to as a person whose many footballing presents usually cloud his judgement as a person caught holding the ball extra than simply about anybody else in footy.
Whereas he will get previous Henry, the Cats defender’s despairing lunge does simply sufficient to gradual him down, so by the point Bailey shrugs him, Stewart has arrived.
Most gamers right here would minimize their losses and check out for a fast hack inside 50, nonetheless a viable possibility when your subsequent man up is Cameron. Bailey, although, tries to get previous Stewart too… and he pays the heaviest of costs.
If the Cats had prevailed, this may have been appeared again on because the mind fade that value the Lions the match. Whether or not overconfidence or plain conceitedness – maybe each – Bailey has tried the riskiest of manouevres – and it has blown up in his personal face.
All of the sudden, the Lions who have been 5 metres objective facet of their Cats counterparts discover themselves 5 metres behind, and Stewart is fast to grab the second. Barely taking a second to assemble his breath, he expertly pinpoints a move into the centre hall, for Tanner Bruhn, who hits the bottom working as effectively.
The 50 he kicks into is congested on the entrance, however with open area out the again. The targets, having pushed again for a earlier Geelong entry and never had time to return to their normal positions, are the ruckmen, Joe Daniher within the uncommon place of getting to play full again on Rhys Stanley.
Stanley can’t mark as he falls to floor, however the Cats are surging: Bradley Shut gathers, rides a sort out whereas giving to Jeremy Cameron, and when he arms again to Ollie Henry, the numerical benefit brought on by the No.45’s fast shimmy bears fruit.
Henry’s snap is a magnificence. Aim, and the Cats are in entrance, due to a play worthy of successful it for them.
There are two minutes and 42 seconds left; in most video games, this may have been the climactic second. We haven’t even scratched the floor but.
After the centre bounce is neutralised, a second ball-up brings a winner: Tom Atkins bursts by congestion, launched from his checking job on Lachie Neale that has barely slowed the Lions star, and appears to bang the ball ahead once more.
Besides it barely clears his foot, as a result of Daniher, not a person famend for his defensive traits, having rucked for just about the whole second half owing to Oscar McInerney’s dislocated shoulder, has laid a decisive smother on the most important time.
Miss it, and the Cats have territory, and the Lions’ backline a take a look at on their arms once more. However from the richochet, potentialities open up for the Lions, with even numbers forward.
The Sherrin falls to Noah Answerth, who does what anybody would do when kicking to a ahead line of the expertise of Brisbane’s – he bashes it inside 50 as fast as he can, in direction of a one-on-one with Cameron and Guthrie.
Guthrie impacts the spoil, however the unfastened ball brings chaos, and it’s chaos that the Lions feast one: in his desperation to put a sort out, Henry arrives a fraction later to the footy than Cameron, catching him excessive up the entrance to offer away a free kick.
As Callum Ah Chee snaps from the spillage, having failed to listen to the umpire’s whistle within the prompt it took for ball to fulfill boot, you’d have forgiven Lions followers for fearing a repeat of *that* grand ultimate benefit controversy from final 12 months, the place a Neale free was neutralised by an under-pressure Bailey kicking ahead simply seconds later.
However they needn’t have anxious: Ah Chee, a Lions Mr Repair-It since crossing from Gold Coast 5 years in the past, who has performed each function from wing to small defender to Patrick Cripps’ sufferer in that 2022 incident to mid-sized ahead amid a spate of accidents this 12 months, has completely flushed the dwelling daylights out of his snap.
Aim. Geelong’s lead, and Bailey’s blushes, has lasted all of 30 seconds. On the bench, Chris Fagan can barely watch.
Two minutes and one second stay when the following magical Lions second begins. From a secondary ball-up, simply on Brisbane’s facet of the centre circle, the ball spills out the again – precisely the place Geelong need it.
Mitch Duncan, a shock selection as sub however seemingly completely suited to a last-quarter thriller that requires expertise and poise, is the unfastened man simply behind the ball, although with out a lot time or area to work in because the Lions cost at him.
Evading a Dunkley sort out, he seems laterally, handpassing within the route of the following hyperlink within the chain, Lawson Humphries… besides it by no means reaches him.
As a result of earlier than Duncan had even picked up the ball, Will Ashcroft, the 30-gamer whose extraordinary heroics within the Lions’ semi ultimate win had already made this a spectacular debut September from the son of a gun, had sensed what was about to unfold, and the place the footy was headed.
His timing is sheer perfection: on the transfer as Duncan handballs, he intercepts effectively sufficient to assemble the ball at full tempo, charging by the mire of blue and white as he does so, scattering the Cats and dishing off to Eric Hipwood.
Should you knew at that time {that a} left-footed Lions objective could be kicked from exterior 50 within the subsequent ten seconds, it could certainly be him. However as a despairing Humphries latches on to Hipwood as he makes an attempt to fend him off proper on 50, all he can do is handpass to the one free Lion he can see: Cam Rayner, who from the stoppage as an alternative of charging ahead like everybody else has sprinted to the surface, into vacant area.
He’s on his non-preferred foot, some 60 metres out from objective, and with a number of Lions pleading for a chipped move simply forward of him as their Cats opponents cost again in direction of objective.
It says one thing in regards to the participant Rayner is, simply because it did for Bailey mere minutes earlier, that the considered passing by no means crosses his thoughts. He goes straight for the jugular.
Had he missed, or had his shot been marked by Mark Blicavs or Stewart within the goalsquare, then he would rightly have been flamed for the type of selfishness that will get the Lions panned after they lose or when it doesn’t work. Bear in mind when that very trait was seen as a key purpose for the losses to GWS and Collingwood late within the home-and-away season that noticed them spiral from second to fifth and needing to tackle September the laborious means?
However, in fact, nobody cares in the event you’re egocentric when it comes off. And Rayner’s left-foot bomb from 50, spearing by the night time like a laser-guided missile to land completely on the objective line and right into a jubilant Lions cheersquad, is as outrageously gifted a successful objective as you possibly can want for.
That is who Cameron Rayner is. That is who Brisbane is. A person, and a group, of near-limitless talent and spectacle, usually criticised for not with the ability to produce it usually sufficient, or when it issues most.
He’s this participant, a No.1 draft decide whose profession has been constructed on moments moderately than fixed excellence, having his greatest and biggest of all of them on the most pivotal of occasions.
Brisbane, trying useless within the water a minute of sport time in the past, now lead by 11 factors; with 105 seconds left on the clock, victory is all however theirs.
Underneath regular circumstances, this may be it for the drama, as certainly it was for the outcome. However the footy gods had much more in retailer for us but. As a result of the Cats won’t go quietly into the night time.
After a Patrick Dangerfield centre clearance hits a useless finish, forcing him to handball extensive to the wing below stress for lack of different choices, Atkins, whose smothered kick led to the Ah Chee objective moments earlier, has an opportunity to redeem himself.
Shrugging a lunging Dunkley, he races into the clear, handballs on to Lawson Humphries, and with time of the essence, there’s no time for one of many younger gun’s normally cool, calculating hit-up kicks. It’s bomb lengthy and hope for the most effective time.
And it almost works. From the next contest inside 50, Shannon Neale, quiet all day, has a second of brilliance: he faucets the ball over his head, sensing moderately than seeing a free Duncan working onto it, with contemporary legs unlikely to be caught by knackered Lions.
Unlikely, not unattainable. For as Duncan takes the smallest fraction of a second as he gathers to regular himself, 20 metres out and with the targets beckoning, Jack Payne, whose knee has barely held up sufficient to get him to this preliminary ultimate, a key defender who does the unflashy, unglamorous issues that enable Harris Andrews to intercept at will, chases him down, getting sufficient of a fistful of Duncan’s jumper with a despairing lunge that sees the Cat lose the ball.
It’s a second that places paid to all of the claims that this Lions group are all type and no substance, incapable or unwilling to defend. That is desperation at its purest. It’s most likely Fagan’s favorite second of the entire sport.
Holding the footy. Disaster averted… for now.
However nonetheless the Cats don’t yield. Payne’s clearing kick swiftly comes pinging proper again, with Patrick Dangerfield launching a correct Hail Mary lengthy to the goalsquare.
Insanely, the Lions haven’t flooded their total group again: as Dangerfield kicks, there are simply two Lions on two Cats beneath the ball, with simply 10 maroon jumpers really inside defensive 50. It’s the type of construction that, had they not been victors, would have gotten Fagan an absolute bollocking for the following few days.
It backfires on them right here: Andrews offers away a free kick for minimal front-on contact on a leaping Rhys Stanley, a panicked second from a defender caught beneath the footy because it was kicked. From ten metres out, the Cats ruckman can kick to offer them a real sniff with 42 seconds left.
However you’ll be able to inform, even earlier than he picks up the footy, that Stanley’s simply not going to kick the objective. There’s the apparent ache on his face as he will get to his toes, an ankle tweaked in his fall. As he hobbles again to take his kick, he’s trying pleadingly round for somebody to offer the handball to.
Within the chilly mild of day, away from the cauldron of a 93,000-strong screaming MCG crowd, the reply was apparent: Stanley might have remained down, triggered time to be blown, let himself be taken from the sector injured, and let another person take the kick, thereby preserving each time and giving Geelong the most effective likelihood at kicking a easy objective for any single different participant on the sector.
However Stanley is frazzled, he’s damage, and it takes his teammates screaming at him to spur him into taking the kick. Already, seven seconds have been wiped from the clock in his confusion.
So it’s maybe the least stunning second of the entire sport when a limping, panicked ruckman thuds his kick into the publish.
Recreation, set and match – and maybe fittingly given what occurred to McInerney, determined by a wounded large man. Simply not a Brisbane one.
26 seconds stay on the clock, seconds that the Lions are capable of safely negotiate, the ultimate siren bringing an eruption of pleasure on the sector and off.
For the primary time since 2004, the Lions had knocked over Geelong in Melbourne.
Not because the 2003 grand ultimate, some 21 years in the past, have Brisbane had a higher win, on the MCG or wherever else.
Will Ashcroft wasn’t even born when the Lions received that sport; now he’s developing with clutch intercepts that arrange game-winning targets.
Joe Daniher was 9, and possibly watching that match dreaming about someday taking to the sector as an Essendon participant; the thought that he’d pull off the match-turning smother that led to Callum Ah Chee’s go-ahead objective most likely didn’t cross his thoughts.
And so it was that, after probably the most dramatic, topsy-turvy season in a era, it’s Brisbane, on dying’s doorstep in April, having squandered their season in August and being obliterated seven days in the past of their semi ultimate, secured their spot in one other grand ultimate.
The story has been compelling; and its most up-to-date chapter was probably the most engrossing one in every of all. If we see higher subsequent Saturday afternoon, we’ll really have been blessed.
