It’s the dying minutes of the third quarter, and the 2025 grand final hangs on a knife’s edge.
A handball into disputed territory at half-back for Geelong is pursued by Bailey Smith, the man who in so many ways has defined the Cats’ season. Time and again this season he has received the ball in such a position, and with his neverending run and willingness to follow up to contest after contest been able to surge his team towards their dangerous forwards.
On this occasion, though, as the oval ball bounces unevenly on a pristine MCG surface, Smith hesitates at the crucial moment. And it’s here where Brisbane put into place the play that sums up their fifth – and greatest – premiership.
Attacking the ball at bull-at-a-gate pace, the antithesis of Smith’s hesitancy, is Dayne Zorko, leaving his man free and eyeing the footy alone. It’s the ultimate gamble, especially against Geelong, whose range of exquisitely skilled flankers can do significant damage if let out the back.
The window is open, and Zorko hits the ball at full speed, bursting past Smith and back the Lions’ way. Weighing up his options, he makes to kick long, thinks better of it at the last second, and has the presence of mind to jink past Gryan Miers, who had set up for the smother.
Instead, he handpasses to Lachie Neale, free just outside the Lions’ forward 50.
By rights Brisbane’s captain shouldn’t be here – in this moment, on this ground, on this day in September. So damaged was the calf that prematurely ended his qualifying final against the same opponent that he took to social media to confirm his year was done. Yet here he stands, the most decorated substitute in history, his calf trusted by the Lions to get through the second half of the grand final and nothing more.
If there’s one knock against the dual Brownlow Medallist, it’s his ability to hit the scoreboard: in 21 games in 2025, he had just seven goals to his name, three coming in one match against lowly St Kilda. This moment, running inside 50 with the big sticks at his mercy, is more the realm of Hugh McCluggage or Zac Bailey or any number of the Lions’ wide array of goalkicking midfielder-forwards.
So when Neale propels himself to the edge of 50 on a leg barely able to support his weight three weeks ago and powers through a nerveless, ice-cold goal to spark a roar that rocks the MCG to its foundations and put Brisbane 19 points ahead in a grand final they weren’t expected to win, it feels symbolic.
It is symbolic.
For all the glory of the Lions’ slashing nine-goal final quarter to ensure a second straight emphatic grand final margin, this is the moment that defined their finest hour.
Two veterans coming up trumps on the biggest stage. A scintillating show of skill from a star player who identified the moment and grabbed it with both hands. And most of all, a vindication of the boldest of calls to pick him for the grand final, a decision that has come back to haunt so many unsuccessful teams in grand finals past.
And it sums up why, in 129 years of VFL/AFL football, I’m not sure any coach has had a better, sweeter grand final than Chris Fagan.
The Neale call was the boldest, but by no means the only, gamble to pay off spectacularly for a coach who now sits alongside Leigh Matthews in Brisbane folklore on the biggest stage of all.
Naming him as sub? Nailed. Fools we were to question whether the Lions doubted his fitness – with fresh legs and clear mind after a brutal, ferocious first half had taken the wind out of everyone else’s sails, the two-time Brownlow Medallist’s clean hands and coolness in traffic instantly turned the midfield battle from titanic struggle to one-sided rout.
I’m not sure Neale has ever looked quicker, either: with seven clearances to go with 17 disposals, seven score involvements and four inside 50s, he took over the contest just as Fagan and co. must have hoped he would. Fortune favours the brave, as the old saying goes.
Beaten soundly in the coaches box by Chris Scott in the qualifying final, Fagan and his brains trust analysed the wreckage, identified the issues the Cats took advantage of, and addressed them comprehensively.
Hugh McCluggage tagged into oblivion by Oisin Mullin? Solved: keep him around the ball, do everything to provide him space to work into with clever blocks and screens, and identify him when going inside 50 for a potential mismatch, as Will Ashcroft did brilliantly in the second quarter to set up his star teammate’s team-lifting goal.
Geelong’s qualifying final control of clearances? Well, why not try something right out of left-field – instead of using Josh Dunkley, the AFL’s premier defensive midfielder, to clamp down on Patrick Dangerfield, how about he goes head-to-head with Tom Atkins, take his grunt work and tackling power all but out of the equation except right at the coalface, and back the rest of the midfield to get the chocolates?
Dunkley finished with just 16 disposals, but the ploy worked perfectly: afforded greater space than at any point in the qualifying final, Will Ashcroft’s reward for a second consecutive grand final masterclass was another Norm Smith Medal, while McCluggage’s influence only grew as the game wore on and Zac Bailey an utter menace forward of centre. All of that becomes far more difficult if Atkins is able to exert his usual influence in denying the Lions control of the ball coming out the front of stoppages.
Ollie Dempsey on a wing? The biggest tactical tweak of all from the qualifying final – after the Cats star dismantled young Levi Ashcroft three weeks ago, this time the job was given to Callum Ah Chee, a man capable of matching Dempsey in the air and matching his craft and agility with brute strength.
Early on, as Dempsey threatened to break the game open, the man who seems destined to head to Adelaide this off-season was immense, with his overhead marking sensational and his defensive work stopping him in his tracks multiple times. Throw in, aside from the first goal of the afternoon, a team-wide dedication to ensuring the defence was set back well enough to deny the Cat the chance to creep close to goal and impact, and the die was cast – while always looming large and getting to dangerous positions, two junk time goals merely expanded a stat line held superbly when the match was up for grabs.
The Lions even prepared for the new elements Geelong threw at them. With Rhys Stanley offering support to Mark Blicavs in the ruck to allow him to attempt to double-team Harris Andrews along with Shannon Neale, Fagan’s response was to equalise. Ryan Lester, left one out and destroyed by Jeremy Cameron in the qualifying final, made it is mission to allow Andrews to fly free for as many balls as humanly possible. The Lions skipper wouldn’t have had five game-changing intercept marks without the selfless work of the Lions’ most humble servant.
Most critical of all, though, is the trait that defines Fagan as a coach, the secret sauce that has brought the Lions seven consecutive finals series, three straight grand finals, and now a pair of premierships. He has unshaking, neverending faith in the incredibly talented team he has assembled, and trusts them implicitly to back themselves in without being shackled by excessive demands.
Backing in Neale to play, and star, on grand final day is the most glaring example, but it’s also evident in the faith shown in Charlie Cameron throughout the season. Another coach may have made the veteran a scapegoat for the qualifying final disaster after just two disposals, or at any point through an underwhelming home-and-away season. Instead, he remained confident the veteran would prove his form was temporary, and class would win out.
That call was vindicated not just by Cameron’s four goals, including three on either side of three-quarter time in the burst that tore the game apart. It was in the 11 pressure acts, the pair of tackles inside 50, and the pure forward smarts that saw him first outpoint Jhye Clark close to goal, then sneak out the back and into the open square to put the Lions 13 points clear in the final term.
When push came to shove, the Cats didn’t have a match-up for him in open space.
At the end of the day, this is a premiership won on belief.
Dayne Zorko believed he could beat Bailey Smith for that crucial ball in the dying minutes of the third quarter. Lachie Neale believed his calf could hold up for a 55-metre goal three weeks on from his season being shot.
This is Brisbane’s kingdom now. And at its helm, quietly going about his business, content to calmly orchestrate a champion team that has transformed from basketcase, to finals flake, to September behemoth in his time at the helm, is a coach who surely now ranks among footy’s finest ever.
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