I once thought the Lions might never win another AFL flag. To go back-to-back would be a dream

On 6 June last year, I was in a dark room behind a hole-in-the-wall bar in Woolloongabba when I delivered what I believed to be a hard truth to an old mate.

We are past our mid-30s now. An age when life’s possibilities no longer appear infinite, when the topics of conversations are less of risky adventure and boundless ambition and more of hobby, career and mortgage. My friend was seeking solace. Having racked up six losses and a draw from the opening 11 rounds, the Brisbane Lions were sitting 13th on the ladder and appeared on track to miss the finals of the 2024 AFL season.

“Please,” my friend implored, “convince me I must not abandon all hope of another Lions premiership?”

We had both pulled on the black and yellow of the Mayne Tigers as juniors, dreaming of being professional athletes. We cheered on Brisbane to those famous three consecutive flags when we were in high school together.

Two decades later, on that night in 2024, we believed we were on the cusp of that glory once more. And yet there we were, drinks in hand, wondering: how did it all go wrong? This was not how it was supposed to be.

From Chris Fagan’s first season as coach in 2017, we – or at least I – had invested increasingly messianic faith in the former school teacher from Tasmania’s ability to resurrect our beloved Lions. Yes, we finished bottom of the ladder in that first year and would win just five games in each of those first two seasons. But, under Fagan, watching the Lions play went from excruciating to exciting. After years in the doldrums, a whisper of hope began to flutter the sails of our once mighty football club.

In Fagan’s third season in charge we won 16 games, shot to second on the ladder and never looked back. Inching ever deeper into September, we ground our way into the grand final in 2023 – which we lost by a miserly four points.

If the ultimate prize appeared foreordained, understand this: we are a fanbase accustomed to extremes. I visualised the historic trajectory of our club in the pre-Fagan days as Kilimanjaro rising from the great plains of the lands of our mascot. First, there were the dark days of the “Bad News Bears”. Then, the glorious three-peat years of 2001-03. Finally, the rapid descent back towards the bottom end of the competition.

In those lean years after the three-peat, Lions fans like us would retell the exploits of Michael Voss and Jonathon Brown bestriding the Gabba turf as dark age Greeks spoke of those of Achilles and Ajax upon the fields of Troy. Heroes of bygone age, never to be repeated. Fagan changed that. With him at the helm, we began to believe: we would be premiers again.

Or we did, until that dark winter of 2024, when our conviction began to quaver. There was scuttlebutt in the pubs and the internet forums of rifts and players wanting out. Commentators wondered if we’d missed our window.

So, I told my mate that night in the bar that it was time we grew up and accepted that we shared the fate of so many other fans. Those supporters of clubs who have a few good seasons, do OK in the finals for a year or two, then slide back to the bottom again with no silverware to show for it.

“Perhaps we must realise,” I said, “that we had invested our hopes in a good, but not great team.”

To illustrate, I posed a hypothetical question most tragic Lions fans will be familiar with.

“Who in this current team,” I asked, “would Leigh Matthews field among his pantheon of heroes from 2001-03?”

My mate made a case for a player or two but conceded the point. Just as we had with our own sporting careers, we must be a bit more realistic: as fans, we weren’t part of something so special after all. But at least we saw the golden age together when we were young.

The night after that conversation in 2024, the Lions went to Melbourne and beat the Bulldogs. The pundits said the win gave “a pulse” to our season. It started a nine-game winning streak and the Lions clawed their way to fifth on the ladder by the end of the season.

Adopting a “dancing on thin ice” mantra, the Lions took risks, embraced ambition. In the finals, we did the impossible with a last-quarter comeback against the Giants and edged the Cats in a classic. Then we thrashed the Swans and became champions.

We both have kids of our own now, who joined the riotous celebrations that followed. Mine is four – too young to divine meaning from 36 men chasing a Sherrin around an oval. But when she saw her old man and his friends weeping as they sung to the tune of La Marseillaise, my daughter understood.

“Daddy, can I have a hat and a scarf too?” she asked.

“Dear, sweet child,” I thought. “You were always going to be draped in maroon, blue and gold. But how proud I am that you asked.”

If we go back-to-back and beat Geelong this Saturday in our third consecutive grand final, these Lions will be revered by future generations as one of the great AFL teams of the era.

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