AFL grand final celebrations: Lions the toast of the town, Geelong commiserate after 2025 AFL decider

We’re wrapping up our live blog coverage of the Brisbane Lions’ day-after celebrations for their back-to-back flags. The Lions have celebrated the club’s fifth flag since the merger between Brisbane Bears and Fitzroy in the mid-1990s, saluting their supporter bases at the club’s historic home in Brunswick Street and their headquarters at Springfield in Brisbane.

It’s been a busy couple of days for our reporting team, and here are just some of the highlights:

• Jake Niall: Brisbane’s stunning back-to-back triumph is a premiership that holds ramifications for the competition, on three key questions.
• Andrew Wu: In the 129 years of the V/AFL, there would not be a premier who has lifted the cup with a deck as stacked against them as Brisbane’s back-to-back premiership team. The Lions’ fifth flag (as a merged entity) has been won the hard way.
• Peter Ryan: Chris Fagan told Lachie Neale he felt “like a bit of a dickhead” even asking the dual Brownlow medallist: What would he think about being the sub in the grand final?

While next month’s trade period might be just around the corner, we’re also looking forward to AFL season 2026.

Good night and thank you.

Chris Fagan says there’s one piece of advice former Brisbane Lions coach Leigh Matthews gave him during their weekly dinners together that helped carry the club to glory once again.

“He’s always said to me that the coach has got to be the calmest person in the place,” Fagan said today.

“The players and the whole footy club look to you to set the right example, and if you’re a bit unpredictable, that’s not a good thing.”

A three-time Lions premiership coach, Matthews was in the club’s rooms on Saturday to celebrate with the team.

Fagan said he was going to soak in the win for “a week or two”, before eyeing off Lethal’s premiership three-peat.

“I want to talk to my wife, Ursula, about [the off-season], want to have a bit of a break. I’m a bit tempted to go on one of those health retreats … I’d probably hate it though, I don’t know.”

They now have back-to-back premierships, so how far can the Brisbane Lions take this dynasty? On today’s edition of the Real Footy podcast, Michael Gleeson, Jake Niall and Marc McGowan pore over the Lions’ 47-point upset grand final defeat of Geelong. Click below to have a listen.

The focus will turn to the trade period immediately as the Lions celebrate their win over Geelong, and their 17 rivals do their darnedest to catch the premiers in 2026.

In a move that has been on the cards all season, Fremantle, who lost their elimination final to the Suns, have managed to convince Melbourne’s Judd McVee to ask for a trade to the Dockers.

Competition sources have confirmed the out-of-contract 22-year-old has told the Demons he wants to return to Western Australia to play for Fremantle.

Geelong defender Zach Guthrie says it was a remarkable effort of Jeremy Cameron to play on after fracturing his arm in the second quarter of yesterday’s grand final.

Guthrie said the inspirational tackle Cameron laid on the Lions’ Jaspa Fletcher in the third quarter, which led a goal for the Cats, was typical of the moments the Coleman medallist provided for the team all season.

He attended hospital on Sunday for scans.

“He was still around last night and that is the sort of guy he is, that he wants to celebrate the year as a whole,” Guthrie said.

It was the second grand final loss for Cameron, who also played in the Giants’ 2019 loss to Richmond and Geelong’s 2022 triumph over Sydney.

Chris Fagan says there’s one piece of advice former Brisbane Lions coach Leigh Matthews gave him during their weekly dinners together that helped carry the club to glory once again.

“He’s always said to me that the coach has got to be the calmest person in the place,” Fagan said today.

“The players and the whole footy club look to you to set the right example, and if you’re a bit unpredictable, that’s not a good thing.”

A three-time Lions premiership coach, Matthews was in the club’s rooms on Saturday to celebrate with the team.

Fagan said he was going to soak in the win for “a week or two”, before eyeing off Lethal’s premiership three-peat.

“I want to talk to my wife, Ursula, about [the off-season], want to have a bit of a break. I’m a bit tempted to go on one of those health retreats … I’d probably hate it though, I don’t know.”

Geelong coach Chris Scott told the Cats fans today the side will reload and go again once they have absorbed the disappointment of Saturday’s grand final loss to the Lions.

“We have had plenty of forks in the road if you like over the past decade or two where there was a possibility that we could turn up our toes and go through a bit of a rebuilding process and maybe accept that our best was behind us, and we are just not prepared to concede that,” Scott said.

“I think it is pretty safe to say I speak for everyone when I say we are not prepared to concede now either.

“We are bitterly disappointed. In this game sometimes all you can ask for is to give yourself a chance and our players and our club did that for us this year.”