As it happened: Lions fight back to turn off Power; Swans down GWS as Buddy falls short of 1000; Cats destroy Dons

That’s a wrap for our first super Saturday mega blog of the AFL season.

Thanks for tuning and following along throughout the day and night.

In the end, Brisbane, inspired by Joe Daniher’s second half, were able to lift themselves off the canvas and fight back from 23 points to kick six of the last seven goals and win by 11 at the Gabba.

In the twilight fixture, Lance Franklin might have fallen short of 1000 career goals by only kicking one major, but Luke Parker ensured the Swans came out on top against arch rivals GWS by 20 points at Stadium Australia.

And earlier today, Essendon received a rude awakening as the experienced Cats tore them to shreds on the way to a comprehensive 11-goal victory at the MCG.

Join us next weekend for all of the Saturday action that Round 2 has to offer.

Good night.

Q: You posed it earlier in the week how the midfield needed to step up and they seemed to have their measure right through to midway through that third quarter. I guess disappointing they couldn’t quite finish the job tonight.
A: I thought it was a tough game of footy, a tough and brutal game of footy where you have to understand what you’re playing against. Both sides gave a lot out there tonight and by the end, Brisbane was good enough in probably the last six minutes of the game to get their noses back in front after we did a lot of things right. Unfortunately we didn’t get the outcome.

Q: What do you think changed that momentum to swing?
A: There’s a few things. It is not as simple as what. They got on top around the ball a little bit but we had our chances and it is a game where fatigue probably had as much as an issue as anything. That big play that went our way when we didn’t quite turn into something, goes the other way, it is a 12-point swing because we probably should have turned it into something. That’s what great games of footy has to do. Someone has to win. Someone unfortunately at the end of the day has to come out behind. When you come up to Brisbane, who are a really strong team, really well-coached team who can push any team up here, I’ve said to the boys, if we can play that way every week we’ll win more than we lose.

Q: You had a few out for injury and a few banged up. Did that play into it?
A: 100 per cent. Not blaming injuries but 100 per cent. When you play against high-quality teams you have to pay a price and I think our guys were prepared to pay the price. As much as your question was about when the tide turned but maybe we were just out on our legs a little bit. Maybe, I’m not saying absolute 100 per cent because Brisbane lifted and took it to another level and we couldn’t keep coming.

Q: What can you tell us about the injuries, Xavier (Duursma) and Trent (McKenzie) firstly.
A: Xavier looks like he is OK from a structural thing, from a break or nick like that. It’s been checked and it’s OK but at the time we were fearing that it may have been broken. Who else? Trent. Trent, looks like...look, we don’t know but we think we he may have escaped the worse. But we’ll wait and see. But on the initial test, our doctor’s very experienced and he’s reasonably confident as an ACL well it is probably not that. I don’t want to go off too early and there’s a number of other boys who kept going.

Q: What was wrong with Rozee? He had a chest or something he had some troubles with.
A: He had an ankle injury he had to carry throughout the rest of the game plus every other injury through the game. Our doctors did a marvellous job. When they had to get going as quick as they could. When that happens when you have 10 or 12, 15 minutes in quarters when you’re getting someone back that adds up to the last five or six minutes without making too many excuses. I thought the game of footy was a great game.

Q: You take confidence out of that. You sound buoyant about it?
A: I was buoyant about the way we went about it. We’ve been up here and not in the game at quarter-time let alone with six minutes to go. We had to do something different. We demanded to do something different. The group demanded that of themselves. I’m sure Brisbane would be saying they earned that one. They had to go to the wire. I called it to the boys, it was a heavyweight bout tonight. It sounds silly, it was round one, but no one gives us a chance because of their history up here, they’ve won 28 of their last 30 up here. A bloody hard team to beat.

Here’s some reaction to the result from social media...

Zac Bailey spoke to Channel Seven after the game...

Q: Your teammate (Neale) just said you’re one of the most important players in the team. How does that make you feel to get the spark going?
A: Oh, makes me feel wonderful that he thinks so highly of me. I guess we have a lot of players in the team that contribute and we saw tonight that there are a lot of players who were able to stick up and have a big impact.

Q: Talk us through the routine when you go back because you kicked some big goals over the last couple of years, one from the week before at the top of the square and that was a crunch goal again tonight. What goes through your mind? Any self-doubt at all?
A: Not really. I think we’ve done a lot of work on our breathing and when I take a mark I like to go back and take a few deep breaths and just relax, go back, I like to stay pretty straight and hopefully they go in.

Q: We see you playing on the forward line at the moment. Do you have aspiration to go on ball and further your career up the field?
A: Absolutely. That’s one of the areas I want to improve on. I’ve spent most of my career playing in the forward line and the last couple of years, both myself and (Cam) Rayner are trying to, I guess, improve our midfield craft and hopefully spend a little bit more time in there. Last year we had a heap of people rolling through there.

The Lions sing the song with gusto

Mitch Robinson spoke to Channel Seven after the game...

Q: Mitch, congratulations, your build-up, couldn’t be more challenging. You spent a week at home, couldn’t train, you’ve recovered from COVID and you’re on fire as always.
A: It was a challenging night. They came hard. We knew it would be a contested brand of footy they’ve been working in their pre-season. Knew it would be a challenge. They came out hard and we withstood them. We fought to the end which was good.

Q: What about how you felt, seriously...
A: Terrible.

Q: The fact that you were at home, you didn’t feel good?
A: No, I didn’t feel good. I knew I could get through the game if I just trained. We had ‘Sharpy’ (Harry Sharp) as a medical sub. We could run 14km and if anything happened he could come on. I got through it and Darcy Fort came in, and he got his guns out.

Q: We watched the first half it was a little scrappy, you fell behind 14 points, then you flicked the switch and you started in front. In the second half what did you speak about to change the way you’re playing?
A: ‘Fages’ (coach Chris Fagan) touched on winning the contested ball. We lost five in a row and they scored from that. Once we cleaned that up, contested around the ball, and starting getting territory, the small forwards starting coming in, getting shots on goal. The guys going hard at it and we got the chockies.

Q: Did you feel as it was a very stagnant game and then you had to come out because if you were going to continue playing the same way you’re no chance of winning. Joe got on the end of a few, he made some right decisions in the last quarter. That’s what we love about Joe. Still kicked four goals.
A: He’s a great player. We’ve done a massive pre-season up here. We know the ball gets slippery and we knew if we kept running hard and challenging their middies we’re a chance. We’re a fit squad.