We are finally at the last Saturday in September, and the game is between the two sides with probably the highest upside in the competition.
The Cats are probably the defining team of the first 25 years of the century, and are as close to the AFL can get to a Patriots-style dynasty.
They have made wholesale list and game style changes over the quarter century, but they’ve barely been bad for a single season over the last 20 or so years and have four premierships for their troubles.
In 2020, the Cats were a control team with players in defined roles.
Just five years later, they’re as close to a positionless footy team as I’ve ever seen who thrive on run and chaos.
They did all that while just missing the finals once over the five-year period.
That’s the definition of rebuilding on the run.
Brisbane have just rebuilt, they were a disgrace of a club a decade ago and who saw a mass exodus of talent before Chris Fagan took over in 2017.
Since then, their progress upward has been uncommonly linear as they have rebuilt the club into a modern powerhouse that’s now playing in their third consecutive Grand Final.
Over the journey, they’ve prioritised essentially the same things, and have iterated slightly on their overarching principles on contest, ball control, and set up behind the ball.
It’s Avon v Stringer. It’s revolution v evolution.
For the preview, I’ve laid out some stats that I see as instructive for both sides at the top of each section of the preview and then there’s a write up on each
When the ball is in Geelong’s half
Stats that matter
Geelong
- 2nd in time in forward half
- 1st in scores from front half
- 1st in scores from turnover
- 1st in marks inside 50
- 2nd in F50 ground ball gets
- 2nd in tackles inside 50
- 12th at defending scores from the back half
- 11th at defending transition from the defensive half to a score
Brisbane
- Gave up the 4th fewest points from the front half
- Gave up the 4th fewest points from turnover
- 5th at scoring from the back half
- 3rd at transitioning from defensive half to a score
- 7th in metres gained
- 12th in metres gained per disposal
Preview
This area of the game is probably Brisbane’s best chance to win it.
They move the ball cleanly by foot from the back half and are able to control games from there.
While they are now far riskier with their ball movement than they were four years ago, always hunting corridor out of defence, players like Zorko, Wilmot and Fletcher are such good ball users that they can still control the game even with the dialled up aggression.
Those three, especially Zorko, are why Brisbane is so good at moving the ball from the defensive half to a score.
That’s terrific in theory. But in the qualifying final, Geelong’s chaos prevailed.
It was a bit No Country for Old Men where Anton Chigurh brought terrifying chaos to an otherwise under control little town and won because of it.
That feels more like exception than rule, though, the Cats were scalding in that game, and Brisbane was flat.
If Geelong enters 50 like they did against Collingwood, with high bomb entries trying to get their smalls involved, Harris Andrews will gobble them up.
From there, Brisbane should be able to get their kicking game going like they did in Round 15 against Geelong when they won by 41 points and took 110 marks.
In that game they kicked 59 points from the back half and 66 off mostly defensive half turnovers that became transition situations.
Geelong’s high, aggressive defence can be beaten as we saw in that game, and as we can see in their mediocre defensive transition numbers, with a mixture of control and aggression with ball use from the back half.
The Lions have shown they can do it.
When the ball is in Brisbane’s half
Stats that matter
Brisbane
- 7th in time in forward half
- 5th in scores from front half
- 4th in scores from turnover
- 7th in marks inside 50
- 3rd in F50 ground ball gets
- 6th in tackles inside 50
- 10th at defending scores from back half
- 7th at defending transition from defensive half to a score
Geelong
- Gave up the 1st fewest points from the front half
- Gave up the 5th fewest points from turnover
- 2nd at scoring from the back half
- 2nd at transitioning the ball from defensive half to a score
- 2nd in metres gained
- 2nd in metres gained per disposal
Preview
The Lions aren’t as good this season as they were last and nowhere is that clearer than their front half game. Last year they were second in time in forward half, scores from turnover and scores from the front half.
While they’re still good, like Sollozzo said, the Don is slippin’.
Brisbane is going to have real trouble keeping up with Geelong if they can’t lock the ball in with structure when the ball is in their front half, which was their strength last year.
The Cats are clearly the most athletic team in the AFL and they know it.
They have a team of guys that can run the farthest and kick it the longest and that’s what they do.
That scintillating, hyper aggressive footy is also proof that attack is the best form of defence.
They leave 50 unscientifically but they’re so athletic and aggressive that it doesn’t matter and they don’t get scored against from their own front half.
This is where Harris Andrews v likely Shannon Neale becomes crucial.
Andrews is the anchor of a structure that needs to generate strong time in forward half because their pressure is good but not elite, especially against the Geelong thorougbreds.
If they can chop off the chaotic Geelong exits, the Lions have a strong chance.
If the Lions can have patches where they control territory, their key and mid-sized forwards should be able to exploit an inexperienced Geelong backline, missing Tom Stewart by working in tandem to create space for one another.
They should also, with the way that they tend to enter 50, be able to neutralise whoever Geelong generates as the loose defender like Hawthorn did in the first quarter against Geelong last week.
All of that is easier said than done.
When the ball is in dispute
Geelong
- 7th in contested ball
- 9th at clearance
- 10th at clearance differential
- 2nd at scores from stoppage
- 14th at getting first possession
- 11th at turning first possession into a clearance
- 15th in stopping the opponent getting first possessions
- 1st in stopping opponent first possession from becoming a clearance
Brisbane
- 9th in contested ball
- 2nd at clearance
- 2nd at clearance differential
- 8th at scores from stoppage
- 4th at getting first possession
- 2nd at turning first possession into a clearance
- 7th in stopping the opponent getting first possession
- 5th at stopping first possession from becoming a clearance
Preview
This is the Lachie Neale portion.
I’ll come out on front street and say it: I like that they will play Lachie Neale.
Brisbane, in my view, is unlikely to win this game.
But they could win the game from midfield in addition to trying to control the ball against Geelong as they leave D50, and Neale is crucial to the midfield equation.
Brisbane has more attacking weapons than Geelong in midfield with Ashcroft(s), Dunkley, Bailey, McLuggage, Bailey etc and could win the game from midfield.
Geelong, on the other hand, has basically punted on having genuine midfielders outside of Tom Atkins because of the positionless revolution they’re trying to usher into the game.
They do have, however, tools to blunt opposition weapons.
If Neale plays, even at 80% he can take one of those up because it’s impossible to let a dual Brownlow medallist do what he wants.
I think if Neale plays, Mullin goes to McLuggage again, O’Connor probably to Will Ashcroft or Zac Bailey and Atkins plays on the key inside mid which would be Neale.
That would leave Dunkley, Bailey or Will Ashcroft, and Levi Ashcroft away from Geelong’s trio of elite stoppers.
That alone is worth it to me.
Neale’s presence knocks everyone else down a peg on the opposition to do list.
Beyond that, Neale’s skillset would be crucial to Brisbane’s success in this game.
The clearance battle will be more about efficiency than anything on Saturday.
The Cats are happy to give up first possession because they junk up stoppages so effectively, which gives them the ability to both burn teams on the spread from stoppage, and to simply stop opposition teams from using that first possession and turning it into clearance.
Neale, even at 32, was the eighth best first possession player in footy and, crucially, the eighth best player at turning first possessions into clearances among midfielders who averaged more than 6 clearances a game.
On the other side, Geelong have all those defensive weapons essentially so they can let every other vaguely midfield player play an unaccountable game.
But that, again, is why I’d pick Neale. His efficiency in close quarters can punish the unaccountable way that so many of their players play.
Yes, Geelong can run off Neale and try and get him out of congestion, but they’re going to win on the spread anyway.
They just destroyed the younger and more athletic Hawthorn there.
Picking Neale is a way to strengthen an area of already relative strength.
Tip: Geelong is too athletic and powerful for Brisbane and win by 35 points.
Max Holmes for the Norm Smith.
NOTE: I’m 0-2 in Brisbane Grand Final picks so what do I know?