Wharfie Time and Fagan’s heroes chime Freo’s doom in one of the greatest grand finals

Seemingly beaten with barely four minutes left when trailing by 17 points, the Brisbane Lions have conjured one of the greatest time-on miracles in AFL history to snatch the premiership from a luckless Fremantle in an extraordinary grand final that completed their premiership three-peat under Chris Fagan and stunned a disbelieving Dockers nation.

In a grand final that arguably surpassed even the Hawthorn-Brisbane Lions preliminary final for drama, courage and unexpected twists, the Dockers squandered numerous opportunities and dominance of territory to be swept aside and beaten by an inspired Brisbane. The Lions’ surge was piloted by their young champion Will Ashcroft and mercurial forwards Charlie Cameron, Zac Bailey and 21-year-old Logan Morris, who put the Lions ahead with 64 seconds left and then confirmed the improbable victory with a right foot snap in the final seconds.

It was a game that the Lions should not have won on the numbers – a reality so graciously acknowledged by Fagan in his podium speech.

“You guys probably deserved to win the game today,” said the beloved triple premiership coach, who entered the game saying he did not know if he would continue to coach this astonishing team that he had transformed since his appointment 10 years ago.

The Dockers owned most of the statistical categories, as their midfield – propelled by their hyper-athletic ruckman Luke Jackson – held sway in the clearances and ensured that the ball was in their scoring territory more often.

But they did not nail their chances, a familiar story for teams vanquished in tight finals, and they were badly hurt by the loss of their skipper and anchor in defence, Alex Pearce, who hurt his Achilles early in the third quarter and was on crutches when he took to the stage for a concession speech that was as classy as Fagan’s.

The AFL had permitted the deployment of Fremantle’s “Wharfie Time” for the grand final – a decision that Fremantle might not wish repeated in neutral grand finals given what transpired with those four minutes and eighteen seconds left when AC/DC’s Hell’s Bells sounded

Patrick Voss had just slotted his third goal from 15 metres out and set off at full pace on his patented exuberant celebration. The Docker faithful, who had the Lions’ share, so to speak, of the 100,023 behind them (half of the AFL’s corporate packages were bought from Perth), erupted.

They – and the bulk of the millions watching this epic grand final – felt that Fremantle had at least one hand on the Cup.

But whatever millions thought at that moment, there were 23 people who would not yield, each of them wearing Brisbane Lions jumpers.

“My guys have a stack of heart,” said Fagan, whose feat in guiding Brisbane to a treble of flags from four consecutive grand finals matched the achievements of his friend and Lions’ board member Leigh Matthews more than two decades earlier, and his colleague at Hawthorn, Alastair Clarkson in 2015.

It is hard to know whether the Dockers believed they had won – it is doubtful they would ever say so – or if they did not believe enough to survive the forthcoming onslaught by the road-tested and composed Lions.

Post match, their coach Justin Longmuir said he did not feel Wharfie Time influenced the result, but it was a common talking point among the victorious Lions players.

“We thought when they hit that trigger, that’s when we go up a notch,” said Brisbane ruckman Sam Draper, who reaped his first premiership, as did ex-West Coast skipper Oscar Allen, after leaving his lowly team as a free agent to join Fagan’s heroes.

To borrow from the pre-game’s premier performer Kylie Minogue, it is a defeat that Fremantle people will find hard to get out their heads.

The footy gods were capricious for Fremantle. They had almost gift-wrapped them a grand final berth, despite a bad qualifying final loss to the Hawks in Perth, by handing them the scandal-depleted Swans in the preliminary final, in which they rattled home and won unconvincingly.

But the same footy gods – in the form of the AFL appeals tribunal – had reversed the suspension of Lions champion Lachie Neale, and then saw that Pearce was injured mid-game.

Neale’s final game for the Lions before his passage to Collingwood, following a season of self-inflicted personal travails, was solid rather than as spectacular as his second half in 2025, when he came off the bench and was instrumental in a demolition of Geelong.

It is among the many astounding features of this grand final that Neale will leave the Lions after a third flag on end and that it is conceivable that Fagan will finish with the club, too.

We will know soon enough. “I have to clear my head,” said the victorious coach, on his future.

The choice of Shai Bolton as Norm Smith medallist, the fifth from a losing team, was surprising.

Will Ashcroft’s efforts in the denouement – when he had critical clearances and then ran on the members’ wing, bouncing the ball to find Morris for the sealer – might have given him the nod for a third Norm Smith (he had 31 disposals over the game and nine clearances). While he was unfortunate to not match Dustin Martin as a three-time winner of the medal for best afield in the grand final, he must realise how blessed he was to land at Brisbane in 2022.

Hayden Young, who was a major influence in Fremantle’s third quarter dominance, was another contender, as was the grand final’s oldest player, Dayne Zorko, and indefatigable Fremantle midfielder Caleb Serong, whose 13 clearances were important.

Brisbane decisively lost the territorial battle (48-62 in entries), the clearances (31-45 and 9-17 at centre ball-ups) and were edged in the contest.

But nearly all of their 23 had been on this stage before. At the end, the chaotic surge from the midfield created half-chances. Charlie Cameron grabbed one with a snap, Bailey followed within seconds with a ludicrous finish in a confined space, and then – as a Fremantle parry forward was rebounded, Morris took a textbook contested mark in front of Oscar McDonald, stretching his endless arms and holding on before calming slotting the goal that changed the lead. Again.

The scoreboard says that Brisbane prevailed by seven points, which is misleading considering there was only a minute left when Morris recaptured the lead.

In terms of famed comebacks, this grand final now rivals Carlton’s mythic victory over Collingwood in 1970, when the Blues triumphed despite a 44-point half-time deficit.

Pitting clubs from the footy state of Western Australia and the Queensland frontier, the grand final capped off a storied finals series, in which four finals – counting the new wildcards – were determined in the final minutes (or after the siren, as in the Bulldogs v Collingwood game).

The Hawthorn v Brisbane preliminary had entered the popular imagination instantly as a claimant for “best game in history” – a shootout that ended in controversy and was replete with individual highlights and abrupt momentum shifts.

This grand final, by dint of the slippery ball and Fremantle’s more defensive method, was less freewheeling and less pristine, but the pressure on the man with the football was greater and all were afforded less time and space in which to execute skills.

Like last year’s grand final, the teams were locked on the same score at half-time – 6.7 (43). Then, the Dockers owned the third quarter.

Wharfie Time chimed too soon. Even without Neale and potentially Fagan, the Lions’ time is not concluded either.

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