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In a game of centimetres and seconds, and less than a kick in it, it mattered: With less than a minute to go, Lachie Neale was legged by Oleg Markov. And then the whistle blew.<\/p>\n
No one heard it. Zac Bailey, who\u2019d kicked two incredible early goals, grabbed the ball and hoicked it forward.<\/p>\n
The umpire called advantage, but there was none, and Bailey\u2019s ball landed harmlessly. The game played on.<\/p>\n
Half an hour later, in the Brisbane Lions\u2019 rooms, children ran amok \u2013 playing kick-to-kick across the room, heedless of the adults in various states of mourning around them.<\/p>\n
Lachie Neale embraced his wife, Jules. He was quiet, but his body shook with sobs. To his own surprise more than most, he\u2019d won his second Brownlow Medal early in the week.<\/p>\n
He\u2019d played in one grand final before \u2013 as substitute, for Fremantle in 2013 \u2013 but the biggest prize still eluded him.<\/p>\n
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Heartbroken Lions skipper Lachie Neale in the Brisbane Lions rooms after the grand final.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>AFL Photos<\/cite><\/p>\n By the far wall, one captain, Harris Andrews, lay on the floor, staring at the ceiling.<\/p>\n When he had composed himself, he stood taller than ever after a superb season \u2013 his back straight and chin up.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a fantastic game. I thought the boys really rallied hard,\u201d Andrews said. \u201cWe\u2019re obviously really hurt from this, but we\u2019ll come back next year with a bit of fire in our belly.<\/p>\n \u201cOur boys need to soak that up, know how that feels, and use that power next year.\u201d<\/p>\n He said he was confident his team had the mental resilience to come back.<\/p>\n \u201cYeah, absolutely [we do]. We\u2019ve shown in years gone by, we\u2019ve gone out in straight sets in finals, [and had] disappointments in preliminary finals. We acknowledge that we\u2019ve fallen short.<\/p>\n \u201cWe understand our own journey. If we push it under the carpet as if it didn\u2019t happen, that\u2019ll leave us in a bad place.<\/p>\n \u201cBut that\u2019s what this group\u2019s done really well \u2013 our ability to learn from our mistakes. At the end of the day, we\u2019ll come back ready to go.\u201d<\/p>\n Chris Fagan congratulates Magpies counterpart Craig McRae, himself a three-time premiership player at the Lions.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>AFL Photos<\/cite><\/p>\n Coach Chris Fagan wasn\u2019t buying into the controversy over the Bailey non-call. \u201cI haven\u2019t seen that, I haven\u2019t seen it. I didn\u2019t know the whistle had been blown, to be honest,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cYou blokes have got a better feel for that than what I\u2019ve got \u2013 I\u2019d have to see the replay.\u201d<\/p>\n Fagan was generous in defeat. \u201cI think the team that won today probably is the team that should have won, given they had more shots.<\/p>\n Zac Bailey was involved in one of the moments of the game.<\/span>Credit: <\/span>AFL Photos<\/cite><\/p>\n \u201cPeople always talk about this in finals \u2013 moments. They kicked a goal at the end of the first quarter; they kicked a goal right at the end of the second quarter. Those sorts of moments.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd when you lose by four points, you look back at those things, and go if only we\u2019d defended a bit better then.<\/p>\n \u201c[Still] even down to that last minute and a half, there were some moments there where maybe, if things had\u2019ve gone our way, we could have won that game.\u201d<\/p>\n But Fagan, like his captain, was undaunted. \u201cThere\u2019s lots of teams in the history of the game who have lost close grand finals and gone on to win premierships.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Hawks lost a close one in 2012, and then won three in a row. Geelong lost in \u201908, and won in \u201809. West Coast lost to the Swans in \u201905, and came out and won the next year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Fagan also believed his club, despite being around the mark for five years, was only just entering its premiership window, with a group of players entering their prime years.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had a lot of quite young players out there today, 23 years or younger,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ll have Will Ashcroft come back from his knee injury, [and] we\u2019ve got his brother coming a year after that.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we\u2019ve only just moved into the window. The banter has been that, maybe, we were going to miss our window; I don\u2019t believe so. I think we\u2019re just moving into it.\u201d<\/p>\n And in the rooms, the kids played on \u2013 footballs still flying, shepherded by their player-parents. Cans of beer were cracked. The sun was setting, but not on this group.<\/p>\n It will come up again tomorrow.<\/p>\n Keep up to date with the best AFL coverage in the country. <\/i><\/b>Sign up for the Real Footy newsletter<\/i><\/b>.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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