A record home-and-away crowd between Brisbane and Melbourne saw the Lions produce one of their very best performances in eight years under coach Chris Fagan at the MCG on Thursday night to eradicate the statistical elephant in the room.
It wasn’t spoken about, at least not publicly, but people inside the club with any sort of knowledge or interest in recent football history were fully aware of the dire situation facing the Lions.
After a 1-3 start to the season a loss to the in-form Demons would have all but torpedoed the prospects of a successful September campaign. At least history says so.
Because in the AFL since 2000 only three of 66 sides that have started a season 1-4 have reached the finals. And none from outside Victoria.
Essendon in 2021 and Hawthorn in 2020 were eliminated in their first final, and in 2004 Geelong went loss-win-loss in the finals to finish fourth, losing to the Lions in the preliminary final as the 2001-02-03 premiers qualified for their fourth consecutive grand final.
It wasn’t an appealing prospect for Fagan and his players, who had lost their first three games to Carlton by point at the Gabba, Fremantle by 23 points in Perth and Collingwood by 20 points at the Gabba, before a 70-point win over a battling North Melbourne in Adelaide last weekend.
Making the situation even more desperate as the Lions looked to mark Lachie Neale’s 250th game with a win was the fact that the Lions were to play Melbourne at the MCG, where they had a 1-13 record since 2014.
It is a statistic that Fagan has always discounted as irrelevant, noting that only Dayne Zorko, Ryan Lester and Darcy Gardiner of the current side were even playing with the club in 2014.
But such has been the fascination of the Melbourne media with the Lions’ MCG record it was thrown in their face again ahead of the clash with a Melbourne side that had beaten the Western Bulldogs by 45 points and Hawthorn by 55 points at the MCG, and Adelaide and Port Adelaide at Adelaide Oval by seven points at 15 points after an opening round loss to Sydney by 22 points in Sydney.
And while the Demons prepared for the clash with the Lions at home the Lions were on a double travel and had had 24 hours less in preparation.
So when Fagan fronted the Melbourne media after the Lions 12-10 (82) to 8-12 (60) win he rightfully had a beaming smile on his face.
And he understandably gave his players a “pass” in the final quarter after they’d led Melbourne by 43 points and had kept the Demons to a paltry 3-7 – their lowest three-quarter time score in four years.
“It was one of our best performances in a long time … I’ve never seen us tackle so well. It dropped away a bit in the fourth quarter when we got tired but our tackling in the first three quarters was just awesome.
“We’d played our hearts out for three quarters so I think that was understandable. Obviously I would have preferred a complete four-quarter performance but we’ll take that.”
That the Demons kicked 5-5 to 2-2 in the fourth quarter to add some respectability to the scoreboard was of little concern. The game was already won.
The Lions out-tackled the Demons 82-53 despite enjoying a significant advantage in the possession count (373-313), and despite losing hit-outs 27-58 to a hot Max Gawn won clearances 44-35.
Deliberately not kicking the ball long going inside forward 50m to minimise the impact of intercept defenders Steve May and Jake Lever, preferring to hit up a leading target, they had 130 marks after averaging 97 through the first four games.
Fagan said he never lost faith. “I thought our 0-3 start was a little catastrophised .. we weren’t playing that badly and the group never lost confidence. We were dropping marks inside 50 and missing too many shots on goal,” he said.
The Lions turned their season around as a Thursday night crowd of 43,098 surpassed the previous best for a home-and-away game between the clubs of 38,030 at the MCG in Round 18 last year.
It was a night that every player will remember fondly if only because wins at the MCG have been few and far between. Indeed, the 2023 semi-final triumph over Melbourne was the club’s only MCG win in 10 years.
The Lions side took a combined 19-67 record in Brisbane colors at the MCG into Thursday night’s game. Kai Lohmann had never played there, Jaspa Fletcher, Oscar McInerney and un-used substitute Jimmy Tunstill had never won there, and Joe Daniher and Josh Dunkley had never won there as Lions. Only Zorko and Gardiner had won there twice.
Fagan delighted in the best afield performance of Cam Rayner, who played career-high minutes in the midfield, set the game up with an astonishing first quarter, and finished with an equal career-best 25 possessions, 14 contested possessions and seven score involvements, and a career-best nine clearances and 10 forward 50 entries.
“He (Rayner) was exciting wasn’t he .. he was one of the few players who were a little disappointed with their performance last week (against North) so he was pretty keen to step up,” said Fagan.
And when asked by Channel 7 post-game about when the plan for him to play more midfield time was hatched Rayner laughed and said ‘out there tonight – I got a few touches in there early so I just stayed there,” he quipped.
Fagan also lauded milestone man Neale, who has carried a bad ankle for the past fortnight. “He’s one of the toughest players I’ve come across. He was so determined to play he did everything right, and it’ll be good for him to have a bit of a longer break now.”
Indeed, the Lions, still facing a tough stretch, will have a nine-day break until their next clash with Geelong at the Gabba on Saturday night, 20 April before a Thursday night game against GWS in Canberra (25 April) and a Sunday night Gabba clash with Gold Coast (5 May).
