Three months ago a large portion of the collective AFL raised their eyebrows a little when Will Ashcroft returned from a knee reconstruction straight into the top side. It was a lot to ask of a 20-year-old who had played just 18 AFL games, they reasoned.
But they didn’t know Will Ashcroft like Chris Fagan knows Will Ashcroft. Didn’t fully understand the meticulous way he’d gone about his rehabilitation and the hunger burning within him after he’d missed the 2023 grand final.
It was a no brainer, Fagan reasoned. The sooner the young prodigy slotted into the AFL side the sooner he would get back to his best. It wasn’t about Round 16 or Round 17. It was all about September.
The wise old man that is the Brisbane coach was rewarded in extraordinary fashion on Saturday night as Ashcroft produced one of the great finals performances to steer the Lions to the second-biggest comeback win in AFL finals history against the GWS Giants at the Sydney Showgrounds, coming from 44 points down to win by five.
Ashcroft’s second half was off the charts. Seven possessions in the third quarter and 10 in the last, with three clearances in each, on his way to game statistics of a 27 possessions (14 contested), nine clearances, two goals assists and 10 score involvements. And all on only 76% game time.
Asked post-game about Ashcroft’s performance, Fagan offered an exasperating ‘wow’ and said “what a game from a boy who is 20 year-old playing, what, his 25th game?” He was awesome … he really stood up.”
In fact it was his 29th game. He was the baby in a midfield with Lachie Neale in his 270th game, Hugh McCluggage in his 180th and Josh Dunkley in his 165th.
As Ashcroft revealed post-game, Neale, closely tagged by the Giants’ Toby Bedford, pushed his young off-sider to play more minutes in the middle for the good of the side. Even when Ashcroft offered to go off the ball Neale said otherwise.
And as Fagan said: “Lachie lives with a tag just about every week, but if you’re going to tag him then Josh Dunkley or Hugh McCluggage or Will Ashcroft will pop up. We need an even spread and that’s what we got tonight.”
Ashcroft’s outstanding effort against GWS came after a similarly outstanding finals debut against Carlton seven days earlier, when he had 20 possessions, two goal assists and a game-high nine score involvements, and used the ball so well he was the No.3-ranked player on the ground.
No Brisbane player has started his finals career in better fashion – despite his 11-month layoff.
The Lions’ astonishing comeback was in fact two comebacks. After cutting a 44-point deficit in the third quarter to 13 points they saw it blow out again to 31 points early in the last quarter.
It was 6-2 to 0-2 from that point as Eric Hipwood, Charlie Cameron, Dayne Zorko and Jaspa Fletcher goaled before an ice-cool Joe Daniher slotted two from the boundary line – the first almost from the carpark – to seal it.
And it was done in an unfamiliar way. Normally a side which likes to play an uncontested mark game, and having averaged 116 uncontested marks in their previous five games, the Lions had just 60 uncontested mark son Saturday night, and were forced to play what Fagan labelled “a chaos game”.
Normally, too, they are a front-running side, but when the scoreboard read 4-12 (36) to 12-8 (80) 15 minutes into the third quarter that wasn’t an option.
Collectively, they stuck at it. “I’m a coach who trusts his players … I’ve done that since the day I arrived and it’s something that can take you far. And sometimes the time to trust them is when things are not going all that well. Tonight epitomised our entire season really, and showed the character of the side. They never give up,” Fagan said.
It was a turnaround that sent the statisticians scurrying for the record books, whey they found that only once in a final has a team won from a bigger deficit.
It was the 1931 preliminary final when minor premiers Geelong, down 7-5 (47) to 0-0 (0) at quarter-time against Carlton, hit back to win by six points.
Saturday night’s blitzkrieg equalled that of the 1970 grand final when Carlton came from 44 points down to beat Collingwood.
That was 30 years even before the now 63-year-old Fagan was born.
There have been two other finals win from 40-plus down - Essendon from 42 points down against Adelaide in the 1993 preliminary final and Western Bulldogs from 41 points down against Fremantle in the 2022 elimination final.
Fagan, 83 days beyond his 63rd birthday when he marked the best win of his 187-game career and the best win in Brisbane history (grand finals aside), is now the second-oldest coach in history to coach a winning final.
Only Collingwood legend Jock McHale is ahead of him. He was 65 years 247 days old when the Pies won the 1948 semi-final against Footscray.
And if Brisbane can beat Geelong at the MCG next Saturday twilight (5.15pm) Fagan will become the oldest coach in AFL history to win a preliminary final.
Amid the hysterical scenes at the Sydney Showgrounds on Saturday night, Charlie Cameron posted a significant twin milestone – he kicked his 400th AFL goal and moved into the top 100 AFL goal-kickers all-time. He displaced from the 100 the man who holds the AFL record for most goals in a game at 18 – Melbourne’s Fred Fanning.
Cameron’s two goals took his finals goals tally with Brisbane to 33 – past Jonathan Brown’s 32 and behind only Jason Akermanis (34) and Alastair Lynch (65) – while Daniher four goals made him the sixth Brisbane player to kick 20 finals goals behind Lynch, Akermanis, Cameron, Brown and Daniel Bradshaw (25).
Jarrod Berry had a finals-best 27 possessions to top 500 possessions in a season for the first time, and Callum AhChee had a finals-best 17 possessions to go with one goal and a critical defensive effort on Giants dangerman Lachie Whitfield.
McCluggage, with 24 possessions, had his 11th 20-possession final in his 14th final to become the sixth Brisbane player to 300 finals possessions, and Noah Answerth had a career-best and game-high 11 tackles.
And Dayne Zorko, after two goals in his first 12 finals as a midfielder, kicked two more in his second final as a defender. They went with 25 possessions after a shaky defensive first half and a 50m free kick reversal which coach Fagan admitted “he was pretty disappointed about” and had the coach saying “I’m not sure what a defender was doing down in the goalsquare .. but I don’t care.”
