Grand Final Preview Extravaganza Review!
Art: AI-generated.
Well, it's been a week now, and there is still a giant-sized, some may even say wharf-sized, feeling of what the fuck just happened knocking around my head.
Justified I feel, because... what the fuck just happened?
Immediately after the final siren, I think my first message to the group chat (definitely some beers deep by that point, so might not be fully accurate) was something along the lines of:
"I'm going to have to watch the last 10 minutes of that game again, because I have no idea how what just happened happened".
To this day, the million-plus Coffee Otis subscriber list is still a somewhat inflated figure, so I haven't had the chance to make it my full-time focus just yet.
This means between waking, working, parenting and bed, I still haven't had a chance to catch that last 10 minutes of game time.
But fuck it, when has having clear facts ever stopped me from having a good time?
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The first thing I would like to make abundantly clear is that the biggest disappointment out of all this, bigger than the Fremantle coaches, players, supporters, and generally every anti-3peat person watching, is that I have it in writing that I was four minutes from literally the perfect tip.
“Freo by three goals, into Shai Bolton for the Normie.
And yes, I will be parting with money to lock that in.”
Outrageous.
A bit of extra sting in this one, considering one of the people I was watching with is a Sportsbet employee.
He seemed to get a sick satisfaction out of that bad beat.
I didn't enjoy that much.
But enough about me I guess. Let's chat about the game of football. Or at least the parts I remember.
The first memory I have of the game, and I have it every year watching this sport I've grown up with, is the realisation that the first 10 to 15 minutes of the Grand Final are just fucking spectacular.
It's a bunch of blokes playing in the most high-leverage situation of their sporting life, and for the most part, you can see that jumping off the screen.
Even the Lions, a team playing in their fourth straight Granny, had nerves.
What I love is that, yes, the ball use may be a bit fumbly while they give the adrenaline a chance to taper off, but the physicality is there from the bounce.
I also love the personal feeling of realising who I'm actually supporting. When I'm an impartial observer on the last day, which I have had to be for the last 26(!) of these now, I usually don't know who I want to win. I'll make a pick, but I often think I don't actually care.
That is until six or seven minutes in, when I am lambasting one of the teams for their ball use and inability to hit a target.
That's when I know I'm actually rooting for them.
This year, I was all in on the Dockers.
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Now, I'm not one to meticulously pull the game apart. Partly because I know I don't have the intricate knowledge to make astute points about rotations and defensive coverages, but mostly because I'm doing this off the top of the melon, and there's only so much information this melon can retain.
Some feelings I do remember feeling throughout the game however:
First Quarter
Freo were proper on top, and I was already worried they didn't have any ground on the scoreboard. I felt like if they were going to win, they had to assert scoreboard pressure from the get-go.
Second Quarter
Just an absolutely classic arm wrestle. The best team of the season against the best team in recent memory. They were duking back and forth, and that's exactly what you want out of a Grand Final as a damn football fan.
Third Quarter
Holy shit... Freo are putting Brissy to the sword in the Premiership quarter? Followed by an immediate fuck-you right back from Brisbane. Once again, the champs were challenged, and responded in kind.
It was also the Alex Pearce injury. I didn't see it live, as I was expertly closing a vent on the Weber 2mm for heat control, but I walked back in, saw the first replay, and said "oooooofff that's an achilles".
Thanks to 30 years of sport watching, particularly with the increase of achilles injuries in the NBA, I reckon someone could hire me as their "Head of Immediate Injury Diagnosis" and I'd have a solid clip.
Fourth Quarter
Holy shit... Freo are going to fucking win this thing... and convincingly? Let the purple rain fall!
Enter — Wharfie Time.
It's since come out that the one bloke who is meant to control the Wharfie Time alarm did not, in fact, sound said alarm for Wharfie Time.
This Wharfie Time was immaculately concepted.
This Wharfie Time should have still attempted to birth control harder.
Fremantle handled this Wharfie Time like a new parent thinking an 8-hour sleep would still be the norm.
Brisbane fired up, and The Boats were shocked into stillness.
After the first Charlie goal, I simply texted the group "oh no".
When Bailey kicked a second 35 seconds later, I asked if someone had announced the Time of Death for Wharfie Time officially.
Even though Brissy were still down multiple goals, let us all be collectively honest, the writing was on the wall.
The last four minutes was a Will Ashcroft circle jerk, and quite rightfully so.
But I feel like it could be an old Buzzfeed quiz —
Are You A Will Ashcroft, Or A Josh Dunkley?!
Both are incredible players. Both are proven winners. But one is more of a Joe Namath flowing-locks Mona Simpson swoon and the other a Johnny Unitas short-back-and-sides Abe Simpson nod of approval.
Genuinely one of my favourite Simpsons moments that one.
Will Ashcroft was incredible those last four minutes, bursting from packs, winning hard balls, and playing with a killer pizazz. But Brisbane weren't in this game without the, to borrow a slogan from the Memphis Grizzlies, grit and grind of Josh Dunkley.
He was the gaffer tape holding the whole fucking thing together.
He was everything Brisbane needed, at every point they needed it most. He's not flashy, but fuck me does he get it done.
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One of my favourite things about watching footy is watching with Milena, and her seeing a smother.
"Love a smother"
She says it every damn time. I admire the consistency.
Unfortunately, she wasn't in the room for Dunkley's back-to-back smothers in the second term, but in my head, all I could imagine was how much she would be up and about watching them, and how audibly she would have commented about her love of a smother.
I would have been more than willing to concede my Shai Bolton tip from that moment alone.
After the fact, you can look at those efforts as a foreshadowing of what was to come.
Fremantle rocked Brisbane with a haymaker. And yet, there Brisbane stood, blood pouring from the mouth, questioning if that's all Fremantle had.
I wrote about Brisbane in my preview.
“In those moments, you may have seen Brisbane bend, but never did they break.”
After watching the Grand Final, and having a week to sit on the result, this preview review is honestly wondering — are the Brisbane Lions capable of breaking at all.