The Brisbane Lions defied the statistical odds in extraordinary fashion to win in Canberra on Saturday as Charlie Cameron wrote himself into the record books in the national capital.

Cameron’s career-best seven goals equalled the record at Canberra’s Manuka Oval, set by St.Kilda’s Stewart Loewe 56 games ago in May 2001.

The Lions excitement machine had two kickable chances to beat the record late in the game but missed one and hit the post with the other to finish with 7-2 from 15 possessions and 12 score involvements.

In his 109^th game for the Lions Cameron became just the 18^th player among 345 Brisbane players all-time to kick seven or more goals.

But for the statistically-minded, his brilliant afternoon ranked a distant second to a numerical anomaly that ranks with the very best among the weird and wonderful.

The team possession count on Saturday favored the Giants by 97 – 414-317.

In 825 games Brisbane have been beaten in the team possession count by 97 possessions or more 53 times. The first 52 times they lost by an average of 64 points, and then there was Saturday’s visit to Canberra.

In a massive triumph for efficiency, the Lions won by 21 points despite the lop-sided possession count.

It was the fifth-biggest negative team possession differential in Chris Fagan’s 142 games as coach.

The biggest? It was Round 1 this year when the team possession count against Port Adelaide was 264-405 – a net minus 141 which is the biggest deficit in club history.

The biggest positive differential under coach Fagan was Round 16 2018, when the Lions beat Carlton by 65 points. The possession count was 442-297 – plus 145.

That is the second-biggest positive differential in club history. The biggest all-time was in Round 15 1990, when the Brisbane Bears beat Fitzroy by 49 points on the back of plus 146 differential. It was 404-258.

Brisbane’s highest possession count all-time is 445 in Eric Hipwood’s AFL debut against West Coast at the Gabba. Mitch Robinson (39), Tom Rockliff (38), Pearce Hanley (36) and Dayne Zorko (31) led the leather-fest but still the home side lost by 49 points.

Cameron’s monster afternoon made him the first Brisbane player since Daniel Merrett in 2012 to kick seven or more goals in a game, and just the seventh post-merger.

In a pointer to how the game has changed, 11 of the club’s seven-plus goal-kickers reached this mark in the 10-year Bears era. In order, they were Jim Edmond and Brad Hardie (1987), Warwick Capper (1988), John Gastev and Roger Merrett (1989), Cameron O’Brien (1990), John Hutton and Rod Owen (1992), Michael Murphy (1993), Alastair Lynch (1994) and Darryl White (1995).

The seven players to kick seven-plus goals in a game in the 27 years of the Brisbane Lions have been Jarrod Molloy and Daniel Bradshaw (1997), Jonathan Brown (2001), Michael Voss (2004), Jared Brennan (2007), Daniel Merrett and Cameron.

Brown, who holds the club goals of 10 goals in a game, has most games of 7+ with 9, followed by Lynch (8) and Bradshaw (7). Details are:-