This has been coming for a very long time.
Since final yr’s epic September run, Brisbane have change into one of the vital dominant comeback groups our recreation has seen – so brutal have their second halves been, from bulldozing GWS within the semi-final by way of to final week’s 10-goal Collect Spherical turnaround, thast they’ve barely wanted to rock up earlier than then.
It has been gorgeous to look at… and in addition extra fragile than it seems.
I wrote final week, after the Lions made mincemeat of a 39-point deficit to steamroll the Western Bulldogs, that this run of giving opponents the soar couldn’t presumably be sustainable. Nor might it finish effectively.
It took simply 5 days for Brisbane to seek out that out for themselves – as soon as once more recognizing a sizeable half time lead, this time to Collingwood, the Lions comeback not solely by no means got here to fruition, however issues really received even worse from there.
This was a tactical masterpiece from Craig McRae and his Magpies. Systematically, they denied the Lions any semblance of the fashion during which they play their finest footy from begin to end, dominated stoppages, defended area beautifully with out ball in hand to go away essentially the most menacing ball motion workforce in footy at a loss as to the place to go subsequent, and easily outran them on the counterattack to attain aim after aim operating inside attacking 50 after forcing the turnover.
It was a win borne of but extra Nick Daicos magnificence, dominating the Lions in midfield so comprehensively a tag was required after half time to try to clamp down on him, then comprehensively outgunning Jarrod Berry and for the second week in a row enabling the remainder of the Pies’ midfield to utilize the additional area afforded by all the eye going the celebrity’s method.
However that is additionally the last word actuality test for Fagan’s Lions, and one that ought to serve a particularly good workforce much better than the form of wins they’ve been racking updated this season.
If numerous wins from half-time deficits have constructed up a way of invincibility within the reigning premiers, hopefully this shatters it for his or her sake. That is an inconsistent workforce enjoying inconsistent soccer, and whereas their finest has been devastating sufficient to sport them a 5-1 begin to the season and provides them ample time to repair what wants fixing, you will be the job simply grew to become a complete lot more durable now that the Pies have arrange a blueprint on curb their strengths.
With the ball, the Pies’ plan was easy: transfer the ball rapidly, whether or not from clearance or turnover, deny the Lions any further numbers behind the ball, and both hit a number one goal, or convey the ball to floor for his or her military of small to wreak havoc.
With a domination of stoppages led by Darcy Cameron’s management of the ruck battle with Oscar McInerney, in addition to a well-honed on-ball group that includes the smarts of Steele Sidebottom and Scott Pendlebury, the dazzling talent of Daicos and the important thing defensive piece in Ned Lengthy’s ferocious tackling stress and scrappy ball-winning skill, a much more extremely regarded Lions midfield group copped their heaviest stoppages hiding since Spherical 18, 2023.
Dropping the clearance depend by 10 and the centre clearance numbers by six is one factor: to lose it by this quantity to a workforce whose strengths by no means lay in contested footy even of their premiership yr, having misplaced the clearance depend comfortably extra instances than they’ve gained it since McRae took over as coach in 2022 makes it greater.
As a result of what the Pies have lacked in amount of clearances, they’ve at all times made up for in high quality at their finest, rating second within the league for scores from stoppages in comparison with their opponents in 2023.
A part of it – who’re we kidding, a reasonably huge a part of it – comes all the way down to the unimaginable skillset of Daicos, in addition to the Pies’ skill to maximise it at each alternative.
Take this centre bounce within the first quarter: Daicos begins it head-to-head with one other younger gun in Will Ashcroft, and is given an preliminary benefit within the type of Mason Cox outdoing Sam Day within the second-ruck duel and tapping it proper down his throat.
Most gamers from this spot would both look to provide a handball to a operating half-back, or else throw the ball on the boot and try to get it ahead: each are issues Brisbane defend towards exceptionally effectively.
Daicos is completely different gravy, although: he has each the velocity to get away from Ashcroft’s lunge, and the smarts to delicate draw Hugh McCluggage into the soccer; credit score to Pendlebury, too, for seeing the play unfold faster than anybody else and going into area of his personal, permitting the handball excessive.
For many different groups, it might then be Pendlebury driving the ball inside 50: on the Pies, it’s once more Daicos time. Sprinting again previous McCluggage and by Pendlebury for the handball obtain – one in every of 19 he’d get for the match because the Magpies repeatedly made positive to get the ball in his fingers – he is just too fast for the Lions star, burning him off with a blistering burst of tempo to get clear for an unhurried, unpressured kick inside 50.
Which, after all, is positioned ideally to permit Dan McStay a run and soar on the footy, and with a few of the most underrated sticky fingers within the league, he brings down the mark. Purpose Magpies.
God is aware of the way you defend towards this, as a result of Brisbane tried operating with Berry as a tagger within the third quarter and it made scant distinction – in actual fact, the Pies went 11-5 at clearances for the time period, and 4-0 out of the centre. His mixture of tempo, footy smarts and lethal talent means you both should pay a serious worth and sacrifice construction – which each Sydney and the Lions have tried within the final fortnight to their detriment – or just let him run free. Each include a horrible threat hooked up.
He’d end with 645 metres gained from his 38 disposals – the Lions’ three premier on-ballers, Lachie Neale, Josh Dunkley and McCluggage, would have 681 between them.
Six objectives to 2 from clearances have been the end result; a transparent catastrophe for final yr’s fifth-best workforce at scoring from stoppages in comparison with their opponents.
However whereas the stoppages have been the place the Pies set the sport up, they really had the Lions’ measure in open play. Each defensively and offensively, the reigning premiers completed as a workforce completely bereft of concepts.
The Lions are a high-kick, high-mark workforce, controlling the ball till there comes a time to assault the hall: after they do go, when that swap is flipped, it’s extremely powerful to cease.
The Pies, although, had no intentions of denying the Lions their typical glut of marks. What they did curb was the place they have been directed.
Time after time, the Lions half-backs looked for passing choices within the hall, and time after time they have been compelled sideways, backwards, or huge to the boundary. Hemmed in always, the Pies’ defence fashioned a latticework by way of the central hall, guarding area and guaranteeing each kick was fraught with hazard if turned over.
That is what Darcy Wilmot needed to face late within the third quarter, with the Lions 29 factors down and determined for the form of freewheeling, end-to-end aim that has sparked so lots of their comebacks in latest instances.
The important thing of the set-up is it’s denying Wilmot an straightforward kick: for all their injury, the Lions often take minimal dangers when going by way of the hall. They lead into area for 20-metre chip passes, all of the whereas taking the ball ahead after which later fanning out.
Wilmot has two free choices proper in the midst of the centre sq. if he’s daring sufficient: however he’s unwilling to run that gauntlet with the Pies so devastatingly quick on the counterattack. And the area the Lions often go for – 20 metres and straight in entrance of him – is guarded like a Roman Emperor.
In the long run, he has to go huge to the boundary, permitting the Pies to hem him in, and Darcy Cameron, one of the best intercept-marking ruckman within the recreation, to get to the place the subsequent kick absolutely should go and cease the play useless.
Essentially the most telling a part of all of it was how rattled it made Wilmot: gesticulating furiously at teammates to provide him an choice as he seems to go, he dithers, pulls out of tried cross-field passes and every little thing in between for a superb ten seconds earlier than going huge. For a man who has completed little however win since making his debut within the 2022 finals collection, that spoke volumes of the stress the Pies’ system was placing on a workforce accustomed to, by that time within the match, having issues effectively and really on their phrases.
But when the Lions did run that gauntlet and try to take the sport on, the Pies have been prepared: hell, it was an open lure to be walked straight into.
When Dayne Zorko marks at half-back early within the third quarter, the Magpies’ construction springs into motion. The hall is sealed off, passing choices restricted to the boundary solely, which doesn’t enchantment to the reigning All-Australian half-back within the least.
He opts to attempt one thing completely different, taking the sport on with run and carry. With James Tunstill ignored because the huge outlet choice, he takes two bounces, assesses his choices, after which seems to drive the ball lengthy up the wing – already a win for the Pies, who’ve compelled Zorko to threat dropping the ball so as to achieve territory.
However so lengthy has he waited for an choice to current, so lengthy has he delayed that kick hoping for one thing to materialise, that it has allowed Bobby Hill to shut in. And with excellent timing, simply as Zorko is placing leather-based to leather-based, he pounces, inflicting the kick to slew wildly off the boot and straight into Collingwood fingers.
From right here, the Pies execute their main benefit over the Lions: leg velocity. They’re chock filled with it, and never afraid to make use of it.
It’s Brody Mihocek who gathers and, with a contact of rush of blood to the top however aiming to try to catch the Lions’ defence on an surprising turnover, bangs the ball inside 50.
It’s tailor made for Jack Payne – on one other day, he’d mark it simply as he did so usually in final week’s win over the Bulldogs – however right here, for no matter cause, he misjudges the ball, instances his leap incorrect, and what needs to be an uncontested mark out of the blue hits the bottom.
Jamie Elliott gathers, offers to Dan McStay, and who else receives the subsequent handball however Daicos, whose opponent has been left within the mud some 30 metres away.
Purpose. And symbolically a minimum of, recreation, set and match.
And a end result that leaves the reigning champions with loads of work to do.
