It’s been a crazy journey for the Brisbane Lions’ AFLW team. For seven seasons over six and a half years they’ve been virtual nomads. Now, at last, they have a home of their own. A magnificent home at Brighton Homes Arena.

Sunday’s AFLQ grand final against Melbourne, which will see the opening of the Lions’ new $80m headquarters at Springfield, will be the team’s 66^th match since they were among eight founding members of the AFLW in 2017. And their 25^th different venue.

It will be the 33^rd game in Queensland and the seventh different Queensland venue, following in chronological order South Pine Sports Centre (5 games), Carrara (9), Burpengary (4), Hickey Park (7), Gabba (5) and Maroochydore (2).

The full venue list is a trivia question few could answer, although so invested is Lions coach Craig Starcevich he rattled them off this week with ease.

Starcevich, voted AFLW coach of the year by his peers this week, has taken his side to no less than 11 different grounds in Victoria – Casey Fields, Princes Park, Whitten Oval, Victoria Park, Kardinia Park, Punt Road, Moorabbin, MCG, Arden Street and Frankston Oval, plus Eureka Stadium in Ballarat.

Indeed, a Starcevich diary of his side’s AFLW journey would make compelling reading.

He has seen a competition that started with eight teams in 2017 – Adelaide, Brisbane, Carlton, Collingwood, Fremantle, GWS, Melbourne and Western Bulldogs – grow to 10 teams in 2019 with the addition of Geelong and North Melbourne, 14 teams in 2020 via Gold Coast Richmond, St.Kilda and West Coast, and the full 18 teams this season, which is curiously known as ‘Season 7’ because it is the second season of 2022.

The travel schedule also has taken them to Adelaide Oval, Norwood and Noarlunga in South Australia, Fremantle Oval and Lathlain Park in Western Australia, Blacktown in New South Wales, and Manuka Oval in Canberra.

Ironically, Sunday’s grand final will see the Lions face the same opponent they did in their first game against Melbourne at Casey Fields on 5 February 2017.

Six members of the club’s first team – Ally Anderson, Emily Bates, Shannon Campbell, Bree Koenen, Kate Lutkins and Sharni Webb – are still at the club. Also, their then teammate Tayla Harris will play for the Demons against the Lions on Sunday.

Anderson, winner this week of the League B&F award, and Bates, who won the same award for the 2022 season in April, also share the distinction of having never missed an AFLW game.

With a ‘live’ streak of 65 games in a row, they head the all-time Lions games list from captain Koenen (63) and Campbell (61) and share second spot on the all-time AFL list, behind only Adelaide’s Ebony Marinoff (66).

Lutkins, who played the Lions’ first 42 games before a knee reconstruction, will play her 50^th game in the grand final and is fifth on the Brisbane games list ahead of Jesse Wardlaw (48), Sophie Conway (47), Nat Grider (43), Isabel Dawes and Cathy Svarc (42).

Not surprisingly, Bates (1170) and Anderson (1142) are runaway leaders on the Lions’ all-time possession list and two of just 10 players in AFLW history who have topped 1000 possessions.

Marinoff (1441) leads the all-time AFLW possession list from Melbourne’s Karen Paxman (1258), Adelaide’s Anne Hatchard (1216), Bates and Anderson. Completing the top 10 are North Melbourne’s Jasmine Garner (1115), Bulldogs’ Ellie Blackburn (1088), Richmond’s Mon Conti (1025), North’s Ashleigh Riddell (1004) and Collingwood’s Jaimee Lambert (1003).

The Brisbane top 10 is made up of Bates, Anderson, Koenen (642), Lutkins (592), Conway (564), Campbell (526), Dawes (519), Orla O’Dwyer (512), Grider (496) and Cathy Svarc (456).

Bates and Anderson share the club record for most possessions in a game at 31, and of the club’s 65 20-possession games they have had 25 each.

Jesse Wardlaw is Brisbane’s all-time leading goal-kicker and goes into the grand final needing three goals to be eighth player in history to reach a career 50.

Harris, who had one season at Brisbane and four at Carlton before joining Melbourne at the start of this year, heads the League goal-kicking with 57 from Carlton’s Darcy Vescio and GWS’ Cora Staunton (55), Melbourne’s Kate Hore (53), Garner (51), Richmond’s Katie Brennan (50) and Port Adelaide’s Erin Phillips (50).

Jess Wuetschner, now at Essendon, is second on the all-time Brisbane goals list with 37, from Greta Bodey (35), Dakota Davidson (31), Courtney Hodder (27) and Sophie Conway (25).

Wardlaw also has two of the Lions’ four four-goal games – the club single-game record. Davidson and foundation player Sabrina Frederick, now at Collingwood, have the others.

Thirteen Lions players have won a total of 19 AFLW All-Australian selections – Bates (3), Lutkins (3), Grider (2), Frederick (2), Anderson, Bodey, Harris, Koenen, Wardlaw, Wuetschner, O’Dwyer, Kate McCarthy and Sam Virgo (1).

In 65 games the Lions have enjoyed a 45-2-18 record yet curiously, in confirmation of what is still a developing competition, are yet to play Port Adelaide or Sydney.

They are 6-3 against Adelaide and Collingwood, 5-0 against GWS, 4-2 against Fremantle, 4-1-0 against Gold Coast, 3-0 against North Melbourne, 3-2 against the Bulldogs, 2-0 against West Coast, 2-1 against Geelong and Richmond, 2-1-2 against Carlton, and 1-0 against Essendon, Hawthorn and St.Kilda. Their only negative record is 3-4 against Melbourne.

Five Lions players will turn out in their fourth grand final on Sunday, having played in losing sides in 2017 and 2018 and the breakthrough win over Adelaide at Adelaide Oval in 2021. They are Anderson, Bates, Campbell, Koenen and Lutkins.

Seventeen members of the 2021 premiership side will play on Sunday. Missing will be then captain Emma Zielke, Lauren Arnell, now Port Adelaide coach, Indy Tahau, now playing at Port and Wuetschner.

The four members of last week’s winning preliminary final side who are set for their first grand final on Sunday are Phoebe Monahan, who joined the club this year after stints with GWS and Richmond, Gold Coast Suns delistee Dee Heslop, Lions Academy graduate Mikayla Pauga and Ruby Svarc, who won the inaugural 2021 AFLW Grand Final sprint.