By Oliver Caffrey
The Brisbane Lions opened their time capsule this September and now sit one win away from avenging last year’s heartbreaking AFL grand final loss.
Twelve months after they fell four points short of beating Collingwood, the Lions return to the MCG on Saturday for another shot at premiership glory when they face Sydney in the first AFL grand final since 2006 not to feature a Victorian team.
A dejected Lachie Neale after last year’s grand final loss to Collingwood.Credit: AFL Photos
After last year’s grand-final defeat, coach Chris Fagan urged his Lions to immediately confront their demons, reviewing the loss in depth before they went into their off-season break.
Starting the 2024 season 2-5, any hope the Lions had of redeeming themselves on grand final day looked like it might have to wait for another year.
But Brisbane have carried the lessons and missed opportunities from last year with them as they have gone on a finals run for the ages to again be in reach of the club’s first men’s premiership since 2003.
“We did a bit of an exercise where we wrote all those things down [from last year’s grand final] and put them in a time capsule, not really knowing that we’d be pulling them out again this year,” Fagan said.
“But we pulled them out before the finals series this year, and all those things are fresh in our players’ minds, and hopefully it will help them.”
Fagan owned up about his own perceived failures, admitting not enough work was put into stopping Collingwood dynamo Bobby Hill, who ended up winning the Norm Smith Medal.
Lions star Cam Rayner insisted refreshing the pain of last year had been beneficial.
“Even though some of [the memories] weren’t great, it’s a very good tool to get it all back to the front of mind, and you feel like you can work on it from there,” Rayner said.
Fagan said the Lions’ use of popular TV show Ted Lasso had been “overplayed”, only bringing it out when the players were struggling with their goal-kicking.
Chris Fagan says he won’t be channelling his inner Ted Lasso to inspire the Lions on grand final day.Credit: Apple TV+
“We needed to laugh at ourselves a little bit, so that’s the only time I used Ted Lasso,” he laughed.
Oscar McInerney is the only change for the Lions, the popular ruckman replaced by Darcy Fort after he twice dislocated his shoulder during last Saturday’s classic preliminary final win against Geelong.
McInerney has put on a brave face this week, still trying to be involved as much as he can with the team.
The Lions have asked the AFL to allow him to watch the grand final from the club’s bench.
“We’ll go out there trying to play for him,” Fagan said.
Oscar McInerney has been ruled out of the Brisbane Lions’ grand final after twice dislocating his shoulder in last week’s match against Geelong.Credit: Getty Images
“He pretty much knew when he hurt his shoulder last week that probably the season was over for him.
“We didn’t know whether we were going to win or lose that, but he bravely went back on and gave us another 45 to 50 minutes on the field before it popped out again, and that’s quite inspirational for his teammates.”
AAP
