On a Sunday afternoon at the Gabba in
The Bears were 14th on the 16-team ladder with a 4-11 win/loss record going into the Round 16 match before they kicked 9-7 to 1-3 in the final quarter for an improbable and extraordinary 14-20 (104) to 14-13 (97) win.
Twenty-three years on their 45-point turnaround from three-quarter time remains the biggest for a win in AFL history.
It catapulted the young Bears on a winning run that saw them play finals for the first time seven weeks later.
With coach Robert Walls already having announced he would stand down at the end of
After they beat 8th-placed Melbourne on the Friday night of Round 22 at the Gabba, Bears players and coaching staff gathered as a team on
The Bears needed the Swans to win for them to sneak into the finals. When they trailed at every change hearts sunk but their northern market ‘brothers’ kicked 8-1 to 2-2 in the final quarter to win by 23 points and see the Bears grab
It is the lowest win count for a finals team since the introduction of the final eight system in 1994.
The Bears lost the elimination final to minor premiers Carlton by 13 points the following week but looked on with some degree of pride and satisfaction, mixed with thoughts of what might have been, when the Blues beat North Melbourne by 62 points in the preliminary final and Geelong by 61 points in the grand final.
Robert Walls and the Bears in 1995. 
Suddenly the Bears' efforts in two matches against the premiers in the back end of the season looked pretty good.
It all turned around on that Sunday afternoon on 23 July 1995 when eight members of the all-conquering Brisbane sides of 2001-02-03 were in the infancy of their careers.
Jason Akermanis played his 9th game, and Craig McRae (15), Chris Scott (26), Nigel Lappin (29, Michael Voss (47), Darryl White (60) and Shaun Hart (74) were still learning. Marcus Ashcroft (119) was a veritable veteran.
Each remembers so fondly the day against Hawthorn, which several days later saw Peter Knights, Hawthorn coach and inaugural Bears coach, sacked.
They remember how Walls had drawn attention to the fact that on a hot Brisbane afternoon Knights had taken his players over into the shade at the three-quarter time break, telling his troops how the opposition was spent and was gettable.
And they remember what a significant day it was on a journey that saw the same team stamp themselves as one of the very best in history six, seven and eight years later.
Fast forward 23 years to Round 9 2018 and the Gabba witnessed another unforgettable win over the same opposition at the same venue in the same timeslot.
While it might be folly to contemplate such an immediate turnaround there will be plenty of Brisbane fans hoping and believing that the 56-point win by the bottom-of-the-ladder Lions over the fifth-placed Hawks on Sunday can and will be a similar catalyst.
Certainly, it was a moment that all involved will never forget, and regardless of what follows it will always be a win of the sweetest kind.
Also, although it was not mentioned in the lead-up, Sunday’s win, after
A further statistical analysis shows all sorts of significant facts and figures.
It was a win that got the Lions off the bottom of the ladder. After conceding three of the first four goals they kicked 19 of the next 27 to jump 8.7% to 82.4%.
With Carlton beaten by Melbourne by 109 points on Sunday shortly before the start of the game, the Blues dropped 6.3% to 69.6%. A 15% differential.
So, Carlton
Since the introduction of the final eight system, 40 teams have been 1-8 or worse, but only two have had a better percentage than the 2018 Lions. Essendon
In the last
The Lions were 1-8 and 63.9% last year, 1-8 and 62.1% in 2016, and 1-8 and 54.8 in 2014.
So, while the prospect of taking on the Sydney Swans at the Gabba on Saturday night should safeguard against any sort of complacency, the numbers give cause for hope to the fans.
Individually, Hugh McCluggage was the standout performer on Sunday in what was dubbed the Luke Hodge Cup, as Hodge enjoyed a fairytale win over his former club in their first meeting since the champion defender moved to the Gabba.
McCluggage had what is often described as a breakout game. It was the best of his 27 in the AFL.
Eric Hipwood kicked an equal career-best four goals, Harris Andrews had an equal career-best 16 one-percenters, Tom Cutler an equal career-best three goals, Jarrod Berry a career-best three goal assists, Zac Bailey a career-best six contested possessions, and Matt Eagles kicked his first goal.
It was a goal Eagles, the fairytale football story of the
Dayne Zorko had 30 possessions and 10 tackles for the fifth time in his career.
Zorko owns the Lions’ last five of these special doubles on an all-time list that includes only eight Brisbane players and a total of 27 30/10 doubles since the AFL started keeping statistics on tackles in 1990.
Tom Rockliff has 16 of them, while Marcus Ashcroft, Nigel Lappin, Luke Power, Simon Black, Dayne Beams and Mitch Robinson have had 30/10 in the possessions/tackles columns once each.
Also, Charlie Cameron took what will be a real contender for Mark of the Year.
And six Lions players shared their first win for the Club together: Hodge, Cameron, Bailey, Eagle, Oscar McInerney and Cam Rayner.
If the fairytale script was complete it would have been the biggest gathering inside the circle of the victory song, but it wasn’t.
Aside from the 20 players who shared Fitzroy's first win in 1897 the biggest first-win celebration came in Round 3, 1992, when 10 Bears players savoured a 24-point win over Fitzroy at Carrara.
That was really special, ending an eight-game losing streak that included four 100-point thumpings, and saw Colin Alexander, Ashley Green, John Hutton, Simon Luhrs, Steve McLuckie, Rod Owen, Nigel Palfreyman, Brendon Retzlaff, Darryl White and Peter Worsfold pump out the old Bears song for the first time.
Three times previously seven players have had their first Brisbane win together, including Round 6 2014 when current players Lewis Taylor, Cutler, Nick Robertson and Darcy Gardiner joined James Aish, Trent West and Luke McGuane in savouring a win over St Kilda in Wellington.
Three other times, too, there have been six first-time winners together.
Sunday’s win, which also gave coach Chris Fagan his first win over his former club, saw the Lions post their first win since Round 21 last
The two wins were strikingly similar.
In the win last year the Lions trailed by 21 points at quarter time before kicking 13 goals in the second half and seven goals in the final quarter.
On Sunday, in what numerically was the best performance since then, they trailed by 18 points midway through the first quarter, kicked 11 goals in the second half and seven goals in the last quarter.
Sunday’s win also made it two good days in a row in front of goal at the Gabba for loyal Lions fans, with their 20-9 total against the Hawks following their 18-6 against Collingwood in Round 7, when they lost by seven points.
Significantly, too, among the 18 teams that played in Round 9 the Lions, with an average age of 24 years 157 days and
Only the Bulldogs (23 years 226 days), Gold Coast (24/18) and StKilda (24/87) were younger, and only Gold Coast (1628 games), the Bulldogs (1630), St Kilda (1672) and GWS (1745) had less experience. And that despite the presence of 33-year-old, 313-gamer Hodge.
