Pastor of the players: The unforgettable embrace that marked Fagan’s legacy

You can hope, anticipate, pray for and even expect a great grand final, but you can’t guarantee one. No amount of modern sport stage management can do that. It is both the charm and the curse of sport.

The minimum requirement for a finale to be called great is that it is a contest scored by day-long tension between the combatants on the ground and in the crowd. This one wasn’t. The turning point was the corner of Jolimont Street and Brunton Ave; Sydney might as well not have gone on from there. If there was a mercy rule in footy, it would have been invoked at three-quarter-time.

By mid-way through the last quarter, the Brisbane Lions crowd was amusing itself, going through its own a cappella playlist. The Swans were doing what losers axiomatically do; they were pleasing themselves.

That’s not to deny the Lions their richly deserved due. It ought to be remembered that a year ago, they fell short on this day, a few months ago they sat 13th on the ladder, a fortnight ago they trailed Greater Western Sydney by 44 points midway through the third quarter of a semi-final and a week ago, they were behind Geelong with minutes to play in a preliminary final. They are nothing if not resilient. Like the Fitzroy in their bloodlines, they take a lot of killing off.

It was a great grand final for coach Chris Fagan. As the first man in modern times to coach a premiership team without having played at the level, and the oldest premiership coach, too, he occupies his own plinth. Perhaps no other coach before him has listened to the crowd chanting his name in the last quarter, either. Well, they had to do something.

Fagan is an avuncular figure who wears a kind of permanently bewildered look on his face, a pastor of sorts to his players, but an astute match-day coach, too. He had all the bases covered this day. At the final siren, he was folded into a long hug by Leigh Matthews, who later presented him with the Jock McHale Medal, setting on him the seal of greatness. Later again, but still on the ground, Hugh McCluggage and Jarrod Berry doused him with a huge bucket of Gatorade. In footy, that’s true love.

It won’t be lost on the AFL that Fagan comes from Tasmania, who will soon be looking for a coach around whom their new team can coalesce. But it won’t be lost on the Lions, either.

It was a great grand final for Will Ashcroft, 31 games old and already a Norm Smith Medal winner. Simply, he made things happen. And to think that they’ve got another Ashcroft coming next year in Levi.

It was a great grand final for Lachie Neale, who would have been an equally worthy medallist, except that he has own collection already. He’s a model of a modern footballer, skilful, clean, tough, relentless and humble. Actually, humble’s a bit old hat.

It was a great grand final for Kai Lohmann and Callum Ah Chee, with four goals each, and Joe Daniher, who did it his patent way, and Harris Andrews and Ryan Lester and Brandon Starcevich, who formed a kind of Bermuda triangle in the backline.

It was a great grand final for Darcy Fort, the Oscar McInerney proxy who played his part. If not so great for McInerney, at least he was on the right side.

It was the antithesis of a great grand final for the Swans. You had to feel for them. There is no more exposed place in footy than the MCG on grand final day when you have fallen hopelessly behind and nothing you try is working, no hatch door, nor a rescue helicopter. The Swans already knew this; it was the same fate that befell them two years ago. Reputations are made in grand finals, and lost in them, too. Some will not be redeemed.

On the podium, the winning Lions paid suitable respect to the Swans for the way they keep turning up. But their stony faces during the presentation ceremonies mutely said that they’re sick of being admired. They’d swap admired for feared if they could, or at least envied.

It’s a kink in footy culture that a team that consistently positions itself to win premierships but comes away without the spoils is regarded having somehow failed, and yet after four successive grand final losses – the last two thumpings – that is how it will be for the Swans. If not for the premiership he did win in 2012, coach John Longmire would be regarded as a figure from a Greek tragedy now.

It’s one of the great mysteries of footy that a game between two seemingly well-matched teams can skitter off in one direction like this. It’s not accidental, of course. Players and coaches make it happen. Once in train, it becomes unstoppable, and as coaches now have fewer points of intervention, they have less chance of thwarting it. This match was played as if the MCG was tilted towards Brisbane goals.

It became macabrely compelling. After a nervous beginning by both teams, and two early Sydney goals, you could see the Lions’ self-confidence rise and course through the team, which meant not only did they hold every mark, stick every tackle and hit nearly every target, their indulgences also worked: a flick here, a speculative fly there, a sag to the back of the pack, a Daniher foible.

In their boldness, they produced flourishes to celebrate goals; Eric Hipwood’s hand-to-mouth after his sinuous boundary shot for one. Hawthorn, what have you done? But eventually they stopped; more would have been akin to rubbing Sydney’s nose in it.

Equally, you could manifestly see the Swans’ confidence draining away like water from a punctured bladder, as the tide of the match buffeted them, and no player, not even Isaac Heeney, could arrest it. At the three-quarter-time siren, three were on all fours, avatars for their team.

They were like the daytime fireworks accompanying Katy Perry’s pre-match performance: all smoke, no fire. Incidentally, what might several dozen beset suburban and country clubs have done with the millions the AFL again spent to import another American entertainer?

But anticlimactic as this grand final was a contest, it was something of a watershed on another level.

To the extent that there was any residual angst about a finale between two non-Victorian teams, it was dispelled by the week and on the day. Fitzroy in Brisbane and the South Melbourne in Sydney were appropriately recognised and folded into the narrative of the game. It is possible for old and new to coexist in a club and in a competition. The day’s keynote was generosity of spirit.

The national competition has matured, and the tone and tenor of the week indicated that Melbourne has grown up, too. It’s a game that belongs to all, and a day worth sharing. When Tasmania debuts in 2028, they may arrive at just the right time in history.

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