The road to redemption is never an easy one. It is precarious, with pitfalls and potholes, and with 17 others heading to the same place, there are many who would run you off the road at the first opportunity.
It has been an arduous journey for the Brisbane Lions, both throughout the season, and in this game, as well.
They started the year booking anything but Grand Finalists, stuck on the side of the road as teams passed them by. Whatever they were doing, it wasn’t working, but over the course of the year, they reeled in the competition and started to resemble the team that went so close to winning it all last season. And then, when they needed a win to make the top four, they veered off the road and almost ended up in a ditch.
Luckily, this team was now used to driving under duress.
Chris Fagan and his team have done the extraordinary over the last couple of weeks. Down 44 points against the rampaging Giants, Brisbane made a comeback of monumental proportions to claim their place in the Preliminary Final, and as they fell 25 points behind, with the Cats playing a fantastic brand of football, you got the feeling it was going to take some skilled navigation to get them back into the contest.
But they shifted into another gear and, damn it, they did it again!
The stared their opposition in the eye, challenged them to match them for pace, for dare, and for speed. And just like the Giants, the Cats couldn’t do it.
One passage of play summed up the second-half Lions. It saw Jarrod Berry, Brandan Starcevich, and Kai Lohmann take the game on with handball down the boundary line. At any other point in the year, this ball was going out of bounds. It was the safe option.
But Brisbane were no longer playing safe.
They ran their guts out and as Cam Rayner set sail from 50 metres out to goal, you felt there was something special about the way the Lions were playing.
However, this was not a run-of-the-mill team they were up against – Geelong were never going to lay down and die. As Kai Lohmann missed a shot from 25 metres out that would have given the Lions a close-to-insurmountable 17-point lead, the Cats pounced. Back-to-back goals from Ollie Henry put Geelong in front, and it seemed like that mob from down the highway were going to head to yet another Grand Final – what a wonderful club they are.
But the Lions weren’t done.
Not by a long shot.
Cal Ah Chee kicked one on the advantage from a courageous Charlie Cameron contest, and then, from the centre break, Cam Rayner broke Geelong hearts with a long bomb from 50 to ice the game.
Oh yes, there is a heap to get through in this one. Critics were answers, names were made, and the Brisbane Lions did what many thought they were incapable of after six rounds of footy.
Brisbane are headed back to the Grand Final… and what a game it will be!
People, that’s just the intro to our Prelim Final Game Review. Join on the link below and jump into The Mongrel’s Big Statements from what is now a classic Lions win.
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