Grand Final Preview Extravaganza!

Fremantle Dockers (Way to go!)

First and foremost, I think Fremantle should win because Iggy called them The Boats religiously when he was learning who all the footy teams were.

Alongside The Words (GWS Giants), The Boats is still my favourite.

I feel they should be rewarded for that and that alone.

I also, quite rightly at the time, compared Fremantle to the LA Clippers in my annual AFL/NBA comparisons piece for some very astute and comedic reasons*

*Reader feedback… probably.

Now, I don't know if anyone follows the little local bush league that is the NBA, but the Clips may have gotten themselves into a bit of a whoopsie of late.

If Freo win it all this season, that gives me fresh material for next year's annual edition.

Are the reasons I think they should win completely selfish?

Some would probably nod.

Does it have anything to do with actual football, like the fact this could be their first flag, they play an exciting brand of football, and they just stormed home in the prelim like a local getting to the bar when he hears "last shout"?

Absolutely not.

But you know what it does do?

Get me invested in the game, and screaming for them to bring down some motherfucking PURPLE RAIN.

Also, this is obviously the part when I turn the spotlight around, and shine it directly into Essendon’s eyes.

After thousands upon thousands of days of not even winning a final, finally, we will have a premiership player!

Unfortunately, that player no longer plays in a red sash.

Me and my mates were screaming for Patrick Voss to play seniors for the Dons in the group chats.

That’s right. Plural. Not singular. Multiple chats.

I thought our collective logic was actually pretty sound — we can't kick any goals, right, and we have this guy running around in the magoos who kicks a lot of goals.

Seems like a fairly good match, yeah?

Not for my Bombers.

He walks to Freo, and suddenly he's this perfect embodiment of the new Dockers: a B-Double full of mongrel, a healthy serving of self-belief, and an unwillingness to be the fucking laughing stock anymore.

Really, this is the sick reason I want Freo to win.

Just another feather in the cap of Essendon's futility headpiece.

I was even going to send a Voss footy card over to Freo to get him to sign it... until Igg traded it to a kid he doesn't remember, for a card he doesn't recall.

Seems like a solid trade.

I reckon he's got a career as Essendon's next list manager.

(Go Lions) Brisbane Lions

Holy shit. What a fucking game of football.

When good teams play, it's the reason you can sell this sport to anyone in the world. Sometimes I think I love basketball the most, then I watch a match like that and I go back to being a 10-year-old kid, and being in absolute awe of this game.

Now, here at Coffee Otis, we're a fairly streamlined operation. Despite playing it off like we’re a multinational conglomerate, we’re in fact a one contributor, one editor operation, with no real deadlines to adhere to (I can hear your collective gasps.)

Despite this, we (definitely not I) decided to jump the gun, and smack out 400 words on Hawthorn making the Grand Final, while they had Brisbane bent over their collective knees, and were giving them the spanking of all spankings.

And as if I couldn't hate Hawthorn more, they then made me flush all that wordsmithery straight down the loo. It was gold I tells ya. I managed to naturally flow a damn Kama Sutra joke in there.

Then, all of a sudden, Hawthorn hit the fucking front again, and I was reassessing the whole Hawthorn section, all for them to finally land on losing rather than winning.

All this did was prove to me that procrastination is king. You plan too far ahead to complete the work, and this is what happens.

Anyway, you win some you dimsum hey.

The Brisbane fucking Lions.

That's why they call it the premiership quarter.

You can take it to the champs for the first half, but can you sustain it after the long break, when both teams have had a chance to reassess and reset?

Hawthorn's answer, while Brisbane were rolling, was about as clear a no as you'll ever see.

You could see them breaking the Hawks in real time. They started to split the game apart by running over the ground in force and as soon as a contest was won at half back, they were out, and the Hawks could not go with them.

The Lions broke the Hawks.

And when the Hawks started to mend and make a run in the last?

The Brisbane premiership DNA appeared again.

The Hawks came all the way back from beyond the dead, hit the front, they were fucking charging.

In those moments, you may have seen Brisbane bend, but never did they break.

The Impey holding-the-ball was unapologetically the right call. The umpire gave him an absolute age, because it honestly seemed like he didn't want to pay. 30 seconds left. 30 metres out. A fucking Grand Final on the line. That call took cajones, and the ump will be on the right side of history for it.

But Impey played with fire and ended up more burnt than a Lava Chicken in the Minecraft movie.

No points for guessing what was on for movie night on Friday.

It was also a little bit of immediate karma, because Jack Gunston launched Harris Andrews with one of the hardest push-in-the-backs I've ever seen not called, resulting in the mark and goal that Mitch Lewis kicked to put the Hawkers in front.

There's not even tall poppy syndrome around these parts towards the Lions. They're just really fucking good, and it's up to the field to prove why they don't deserve to win.

Over the last three seasons — no one has.

Prediction

First and foremost — as mentioned, congratulations to Patrick Voss for once again proving the absolute futility of the Essendon Bombers. We have a cast-off in Vossy, and a want-away in Sammy Draper now facing off in a Grand Final.

I could obviously mention Conor McKenna as well, who had to escape Essendon to a different sport in a different country in a different hemisphere. It took him three years to get the taste of red and black out of his mouth, and then decide to make a return… to Brisbane. He then has a chance to play in two thirds of the Lions’ three-peat. 65% is a pass in a sparkies exam, so while a 66% mark is technically scraping over the line, I dare say Conor will take it in this situation.

Turns out all Essendon does is produce premiership players... for other teams.

Meanwhile, we're watching footage of 18-year-olds getting around the track, desperately not trying to fuck up yet another draft pick.

The worst part is, we can't even act like another team got who we wanted, because we finished dead last, so we're on the clock first.

Anyway — who the fuck am I going to tip?

Not going to lie, this was a lot more fun when Hawks were winning and I could unleash with a hate tip.

I guess it won't be as much of a hate tip now, but I'll keep it the same.

For starters — I reckon it's going to be an absolute slog. The emotion of each team's preliminary final is probably going to have them feeling like they've played the Granny already.

But:

Freo by three goals, into Shai Bolton for the Normie.

And yes, I will be parting with money to lock that in.