Of the six remaining teams in premiership contention in 2024, none come close to the amount of imponderables that Brisbane do.
So enigmatic are the Lions, so random, so polarising and fluctuating, that it’s entirely possible to watch them become the first finalist in 50 years to keep their opponents scoreless to quarter time, storm to a 60-0 lead, never get headed, win comfortably and come out of an elimination final as bruise free as it’s possible to be, and still feel less confident about their premiership chances.
The Lions, at their best, are spectacular – but we already knew that. Slicing up the corridor from half-back to inside 50 with a succession of spectacular kicks from Dayne Zorko or Darcy Wilmot, through to Hugh McCluggage or Lachie Neale or Will Ashcroft, and then on to a Zac Bailey or a Cam Rayner or a Kai Lohmann, maybe with a bit of Joe Daniher thrown in for good measure.
The midfielders are beasts at stoppages, particularly centre bounces; when Oscar McInerney is giving them first use, which is most of the time in this career-best year for the gangly ruckman, there’s little stopping Neale, Josh Dunkley, McCluggage and co. from whisking the ball away from the coalface and to the outside in the blink of an eye, where there is a surfeit of fast-running overlappers about to make life miserable for the opposition backs.
In their own defence, Harris Andrews racks up intercept marks, the criminally underrated Ryan Lester takes another scalp playing either talls too large for him or small too quick and yet somehow rarely get the best of him, and Brandon Starcevich takes the best goalsneak and hides him in either his left pocket or under his right fingernail, whichever he prefers. Then, once they get the footy back, it’s over to Zorko, Wilmot and Conor McKenna to whisk it away and begin the cycle of devastation anew.
When Brisbane play like they did against Carlton in the first quarter and a half of their elimination final, or to quarter time against GWS and Collingwood in the latter rounds of the home-and-away season, they look superior to every team left remaining in the finals race. Even Hawthorn. Even the minor premiers Sydney.
The problem is that this devastating level of play, one that basically no one in the AFL could hope to match on all bases, is now starting to resemble a video game power-up. Like a rocket boost in Mario Kart; it’s a speed no team playing normally can get near, but that only pops up when you’re lucky, and when it’s around is merely fleeting.
For one and a half quarters at the Gabba, the Lions powered up; then for the rest, they did their best to make a 60-0 lead look thoroughly, and almost incredulously, shaky.
Yes, the Blues never got closer than 29 points in arrears while the game was still up for grabs – you can basically discount the junk time goals that came after Brisbane steadied to reduce the margin to 28.
But had the visitors not been so totally not up for the fight from the opening bounce, had they not made a swathe of glaring tactical errors in everything from starting Tom De Koning as sub to trying to tag Lachie Neale with Adam Cerra instead of George Hewett – had they only been bad enough to be six goals down instead of ten – then there is just no telling how tense things would have become for them.
Of course, if the Blues were capable of better than any of that they wouldn’t have collapsed from second after the byes through to scraping into the finals with half the best team in the casualty ward.
Charlie Curnow’s absence left a gaping hole in attack – try as he might, Andrews never had to worry about him the way he’d have had to for Curnow – and of those brought back from injury as a last roll of the dice, none performed like they were worth replacing the eager, desperate youngsters that filled in for them late in the season. (Alex Cincotta would have been rather handy tagging Zorko, wouldn’t he?)
But the Lions have significantly bigger fish to fry this finals series than Carlton, and a team capable of taking it as deep as it wants to go in September.
If and when they fall, it will not be through lack of talent, nor, you’d suspect, from an inadequate supply of scoring chances. It will be because the gap between their best and worst not just from game to game, but almost minute to minute, is a chasm big enough to fit three Oscar McInerneys stretched out toe to fingertip.
The contrast in pressure between the first half and the third quarter perfectly encapsulates the problem: having utterly, overwhelmingly obliterated the Blues up to the main break, the Lions stopped. Not slowed to a crawl, not hit a roadblock, but just flat out stopped dead in their tracks.
In the first quarter, when they racked up a 5.5 (35) to 0 lead and afforded the Blues an (unwanted) place in the history books, Brisbane laid 25 tackles – their most in a single term since Round 9. At the main break, their pressure factor was a sizeable 194 – good numbers for any team, but especially for them, the worst team in that regard in the league all season.
The finals had arrived, and it looked like the Lions were ready for the forthcoming upping of intensity.
They hunted the Blues whenever they won possession, restricting them to 62.7 per cent disposal efficiency to quarter time despite having nearly as many kicks as handballs; they won all four centre bounces as McInerney dominated Pittonet; they had six fewer turnovers despite having fewer disposals with which to inflict them; and most impressive of all, led tackles inside 50 9-2.
When the Lions harass like this, good luck beating them.
And then, after half time… it was as if a switch had been flicked. Suddenly, from the heights of 194, their pressure factor sat at 161 for the third term, and was as low as 151 until halfway through it.
Taking glee in the mysterious collapse of their rivals, the Blues pounced, kicking three quick goals to start the term and threaten the most miraculous of comebacks before the Lions, by virtue of the huge lead they’d already built up, were able to steady the ship.
Look how easily Sam Walsh exits this boundary throw-in stoppage in the third term, with only the most token resistance from the Lions on-ballers, if you need evidence.
The inside 50 count, hitherto dominated by the Lions? 11-19 in the third term. A centre bounce domination suddenly leant 3-2 in favour of the visitors, having been 9-2 at the main break. And as for disposals, the Lions suddenly found themselves, courtesy of a 103-71 disadvantage for the quarter, behind in the stat.
Tackles inside 50? Just one in the third term, the Blues suddenly able to rebound with far greater ease and fluency. And with little pressure on the ball carrier, kicks previously scrubbed into attack or sent long and high for the Hail Mary were suddenly lacing out teammates.
It’s doubly alarming, because it’s almost identical to what happened to the Lions against GWS and Collingwood. An opponent far lesser than them on talent, blown off the canvas early, then slowly but surely wresting back control until finally taking the lead midway through the last quarter.
The sole difference in those cases was that the Lions had extra time and margin on its side; the Blues were never going to reel in a 60-point deficit in the way the Giants did 30 and the Magpies did 31.
Had those first two fadeouts not happened, it might be possible to give Brisbane the benefit of the doubt that the size of the margin gave them a justified feeling that the game was done, and that playing out the rest of it came second to self-preservation.
But because it happened twice in the last month to cost them a top-two and then a top-four berth, stakes almost as high as they were for this cutthroat final, it’s clear that something is going seriously awry at the Lions, for all their brilliance at their best.
It can’t be lack of fitness, can it? Is it possible that it’s psychological, that once an opponent starts a run of goals they’re powerless to stop their momentum?
The Blues sneaked into finals with the walking wounded, and have been dispatched. But the Lions would be kidding themselves to think GWS next week, and then should they win that Geelong in a preliminary final, won’t be putting up twice the resistance, especially early.
Right now, their five remaining rivals will know that the Lions can be felled, especially if you deny them the hot start they have become accustomed to; indeed, even if you give it to them, surely the Giants and (possibly) the Cats will know that this is a side vulnerable to a counterattack if timed right.
The problem is deeper than the Lions’ horrid kicking for goal, or their key defensive issues. It’s a team-wide malaise that arrives unexpectedly, leaves just as briefly, and leaves both fans and pundits alike with no idea of the characters representing them.
Brisbane truly are their own worst enemy. And unless he can find a way to stop it against better opposition than Carlton, it’s all but impossible to see them win a flag off the back of more one-and-a-half-quarter surges.
