For a coach that sections of the Melbourne media wanted to lynch partway through the season, Chris Fagan has done an extraordinary job in 2024. Again.
The Lions, set to play Carlton in an elimination final at the Gabba on Saturday night, 7 September, are the only side going into their sixth consecutive finals campaign.
And they’ll carry with them a statistical summary that confirms they’ve been the best-performed home-and-away side of the past six years … with most wins, most finals appearances and the best aggregate ladder position.
Having confirmed 5th spot on the 2024 home-and-away ladder with a 20-point win over Essendon at the Gabba on Saturday night, the Lions are one finals appearance up on Geelong and the Western Bulldogs, who missed 12th and 9th in 2023.
There have been three changes to the top eight of last year, with Geelong, the Bulldogs and Hawthorn displacing Collingwood, Melbourne and StKilda.
In an undeniable endorsement of coach Fagan, the Lions have had 91 wins and a draw in the last six home-and-away seasons to head Geelong (87 wins, one draw) and Port Adelaide (85).
And, if for comparison purposes a minor premiership equates to a “1” on the home-and-away ladder and a wooden-spoon is “18”, the Lions aggregate finishing position from 2019-2024 is 21. They’ve gone 2-2-4-6-2-5.
Geelong are next with 24, having finished 1-4-3-1-12-3, and Port third with 29 – 10-1-2-11-3-2.
Full details for the three different statistical summaries are:-
WINS: Brisbane 91/1, Geelong 87/1, Port Adel 85, Collingwood 76/3, W/Bulldogs 75, Melbourne 74/1. Sydney 73/1, GWS 66/1, StKilda 64. Fremantle 63/2, Richmond 62/4, Carlton 60/1, Essendon 58/2, Hawthorn 53, Adelaide 47, W/Coast 47, G/Coast 46, North 26.
IN THE FINALS: Brisbane 6, Geelong 5, W/Bulldogs 5, Collingwood 4, GWS 4, Port Adel 4, Sydney 4, Melbourne 3, Richmond 3, Carlton 2, Essendon 2, StKilda 2, W/Coast 2, Fremantle 1, Hawthorn 1, Adelaide 0, G/Coast 0, North 0.
ON THE LADDER: Brisbane 21, Geelong 24, Port Adel 29, W/Bulldogs 42, Collingwood 43, Melbourne 47, Sydney 49, GWS 50, Richmond 56, StKilda 58, Carlton 62, Fremantle 65, Essendon 66, W/Coast 70, Hawthorn 74, Adelaide 83, G/Coast 88, North 99.
And all that has come after Fagan inherited a ‘broken’ team after Justin Leppitsch was sacked as coach at the end of 2016. So broken the Lions won three games in each of Fagan’s first two seasons in 2017-18.
But if the 2024 Lions are going to turn the consistency of the past six years into the ultimate prize in September they will have to do what only two teams have done in the 37 years of the national competition … win the flag from outside the top four.
Only Adelaide in 1998 and the Bulldogs in 2016 have won the flag without the comfort of the double-chance that comes with a top-four finish.
Adelaide, premiers in 1997, won four in a row in the 1998 finals against the sides that finished 4th, 3rd, 2nd and 1st on the H&A ladder – in order – while travelling to Melbourne, Sydney, Melbourne and Melbourne again.
In 2016, the first year of the pre-finals bye, the Bulldogs had only half the interstate travel of the 1998 Crows, playing their four finals in Perth, Melbourne, Sydney and Melbourne.
As was almost predictable after a home-and-away season of extraordinary ups and downs, the AFL has landed with a final in four different stats in week 1 – Brisbane (5th) will host Carlton (8th) at the Gabba, Sydney (1st) will host GWS (4th) at the SCG, Port Adelaide (2nd) will host Geelong (3rd) at Adelaide Oval, and the Western Bulldogs (6th) and Hawthorn (7th) will meet at the MCG.
It’s Port against Geelong at Adelaide Oval on Thursday night 5 September, the Dogs and Hawthorn at the MCG the following night, and the Swans and the Giants at the SCG at 3.20pm on the Saturday ahead of the Brisbane v Carlton game.
Brisbane. opposed this week to Lions triple premiership captain and former coach Michael Voss, will meet Carlton in the finals for the seventh time.
Astonishingly, Voss has been involved in all seven of them – four as a Brisbane player, one as Brisbane coach, and now two as Carlton coach.
It’s a 4-2 split to Brisbane – with the home side having won each time.
The Blues beat the then Brisbane Bears in the Bears’ first final at the MCG in 1995. It was in the days when the minor premiers played the 8th-ranked side in the first week of the finals. The Bears, having won six of their last seven to scrape into the finals, lost 13 points to the side that won their next two finals by 10 goals to claim the flag,
In 1996 the 3rd-ranked Bears hosted the 5th-placed Blues in the second Gabba final in 1996 after a one-point win over 6th-ranked Essendon in the first Gabba final a week earlier. It was a total contrast – the home side won by 97 points.
The 1999 qualifying final saw a 3rd-ranked Brisbane Lions beat 6th-ranked Carlton by 73 points at the Gabba, and in 2000, when the Lions went into the finals from 6th position, they lost by 82 points to the 2nd-ranked Blues at the MCG.
In 2009, when Voss was in his first season as Brisbane coach, the Lions won an elimination final by seven points, and last year Brisbane prevailed by 16 points in the preliminary final.
Despite their disastrous 0-3 start to the season, the Lions got through 23 rounds with the equal second-least number of team changes at 41. Minor premiers Sydney made least at 41 while, oddly, Hawthorn, who started 0-5, ranked equal with Brisbane at 41. Fremantle (43) and GWS (45) were the only others below 50, while wooden-spooners Richmond made most (73) from West Coast (63), Gold Coast (62) and Geelong (61).
Brisbane used 37 different players - fewer only than Richmond (42), West Coast (39), North Melbourne (39), Adelaide (39) Gold Coast (38) StKilda (38). Sydney (31) used fewest players (easily) from Port (34), GWS (34) and Hawthorn (34).
Brisbane had a League-high 11 players player all 23 home-and-away games - Harris Andrews, Jarrod Berry, Charlie Cameron, Josh Dunkley, Joe Daniher, Jaspa Fletcher, Ryan Lester, Kai Lohmann, Hugh McCluggage, Cam Rayner, Darcy Wilmot and Dayne Zorko.
Sydney (9) and Collingwood (9) had the next most ‘survivors’ from the first game of the season, with wooden-spooners North Melbourne (8) next. Essendon, Fremantle and Geelong had seven who played every game, and at the other end of the scale – Richmond (1), Carlton (4), Gold Coast (4), Hawthorn (4), Adelaide (5), GWS (5), West Coast (5) and Western Bulldogs (5).
Sydney had the best percentage at 126.7 from Bulldogs (125.1), Brisbane (121.9) and Hawthorn (118.5). Fremantle, who finished 10th, had the 7th-best percentage at 111.9, pushing GWS (109.1) outside the top eight.
The eight finalists had the eight best offensive records – Sydney (1), Bulldogs (2), Geelong (3), Carlton (4), Brisbane (5), Hawthorn (6), GWS (7) and Port (8), but three non-finalists ranked among the eight best defensive records. It was Bulldogs (1) from Brisbane (2), Port (3), Fremantle (4), StKilda (5), Hawthorn (6), Sydney (7) and Melbourne (8), with GWS (9), Geelong (11) and Carlton (14).
On Saturday night, Joe Daniher celebrated his 200th AFL game with his second 50-goal season in his fourth season with the Lions, and the third of his 12 years in the AFL. He kicked 67 in 2017 at Essendon, and 61 with Brisbane last year, and has an even 50 this year.
And in a real statistical oddity, Daniher, who has kicked 50 goals 44 behinds, became just the second player in AFL history to kick a behind in every game of the home-and-away season, since behinds were first recorded in 1965.
The other player was Queenslander Jason Dunstall in 1992. He kicked 139-84 during the 22-game home-and-away season and then kicked 6-0 in an elimination final loss to West Coast.
It was laughingly suggested on Sunday night Dunstall should pass on to Daniher the ‘Lewis Jetta Medal’, metaphorically named after the former Sydney and West Coast wingman whose first 19 scoring shots in the AFL in 2010 were behinds.
