Lions take third spot after winning heavyweight bout; Dog of a day for flat Beveridge

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Lions take third spot after winning heavyweight bout; Dog of a day for flat Beveridge

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ANALYSIS: Late controversy but ‘Lions deserved the win’

The Brisbane Lions made hard work of it, but the reigning premiers are back in their fifth qualifying final in seven seasons after defeating a gallant Hawks by 10 points in a classic encounter at the Gabba.

The win puts them into a qualifying final against Geelong, who they have beaten in their past three encounters. Hawthorn have to wait to see whether Gold Coast beat Essendon and the margin before knowing if they finish seventh or eighth to play the Giants or Fremantle away in an elimination final.

The Lions were the better team with their midfield dominating but were unable to capitalise on their territory advantage kicking 0.8 in the first quarter and then 2.9 in the third quarter.

It took a dubious umpiring decision against Hawthorn for insufficient intent to settle the contest with just two points separating the two teams with six minutes left.

Bruce Reville goaled from the free kick which should be debated as it is not what the rule intends and the Lions immediately kicked another goal through Cameron Rayner from a centre clearance and the match was over.

Such a call was disappointing however the Lions deserved the win.

They won the inside 50 count and their three best midfielders Hugh McCluggage, Josh Dunkley and Will Ashcroft were better than the Hawks who relied on bounce from half back to score.

Their guns were Amon and Jarman Impey who used the ball bravely to ensure the Hawks kept turning up and hanging in the contest. But they could not get their noses back in front.

Jack Ginnivan and Mabior Chol were the Hawks best forwards while Kai Lohmann and Rayner turned the match for the Lions.

The Lions would have been ruing their inaccuracy if they had lost but it was not completely unexpected as their accuracy has been an issue on more than one occasion during Chris Fagan’s reign as coach.

It has been a tough year for the purists but the match at the Gabba reclaimed some ground with a classic between the Brisbane Lions and Hawthorn.

Dayne Zorko, who played his 300th game, said the team were saying at quarter time the goalkicking could not get any worse (of course it did in the third quarter).

“The message [at quarter-time] was ‘don’t get frustrated and move on’,” Charlie Cameron told Channel 7.

The top six is set: Adelaide vs Collingwood, Geelong vs Brisbane Lions, GWS Giants vs either Hawthorn or Gold Coast, Fremantle vs either Hawthorn or Gold Coast. Four opening finals in four states and a guaranteed final in Queensland in either second or third week of finals.

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Good night and thanks

By Scott Spits

It’s been a bumper day of AFL action. Tonight’s Brisbane-Hawthorn clash was worthy of a final, which is fitting as while this year’s top eight is not quite set, the top six is set in stone. Can Essendon pull off a miracle on Wednesday by defeating Gold Coast to deny the Suns a finals spot? Highly unlikely but we’ll be watching on.

Good night.

Toby Greene stars as Giants nab home final

By Vince Rugari

Sometimes, it takes a moment of brilliance to win a match. Sometimes, to save a match. Sometimes, it takes two.

With the game – and a home final – on the line late in Sunday’s clash against St Kilda, the Giants needed something from someone to stave off the distinctly real possibility of a late raid from the visitors.

Enter Toby Greene, who did what can only be described as Toby Greene things, hauling in not one, but a pair of spectacular contested marks inside the final two minutes of their pulsating 11-point win at Engie Stadium, shaving crucial seconds off the clock while also snapping the Saints’ momentum.

“When you’ve got to go, you’ve just got to go,” Greene said after the match. “Sometimes you hang on to them, sometimes you don’t.”

The first was in Greater Western Sydney’s forward pocket, as they held a four-point lead. He could have won the match for them, then and there, with his set shot from a difficult angle. Though he missed, he had the presence of mind to flood the corridor ahead of St Kilda’s kick-in – and there he was, chopping off the Saints’ long bomb into the centre square with another crucial mark, almost chopping off the head of teammate Lachie Whitfield in the process.

Toby Greene took two hangers in quick succession to save the game for the Giants.

Toby Greene took two hangers in quick succession to save the game for the Giants.Credit: Fox Footy

Those moments capped off an all-round excellent display from the Giants captain, who kicked four goals from 17 disposals and set up another to lead the way against a plucky Saints outfit, in a game featuring eight lead changes across the second half.

“That’s Toby, isn’t it?” coach Adam Kingsley said.

“There’s not many players, really, that back-to-back can not only generate another 30 seconds for you to take that off the clock ... he hit the post from the boundary line. Pretty close shot. And then [to] go back and knew that they were going to attack corridor and protected it for us ... absolutely brilliant.

“That’s what he does, honestly. We don’t want to rely on that. But it’s nice when it does happen.”

Their September fate wasn’t immediately clear on Sunday afternoon, with two more games to come that were to shape the make-up and order of the top eight, as well as Gold Coast’s catch-up match against Essendon next week.

But the 15.14 (104) to 14.9 (93) victory means the Giants will almost certainly finish fifth on the ladder, and will play a home elimination final against the team that finishes eighth.

Kingsley believes they are a better team than they were 12 months ago, when the Giants entered the finals series full of promise from fourth position, but were sent packing in straight sets after defeats to Sydney and eventual premiers Brisbane.

“We’ve grown in our ability in close games to manage them. Clearly in the finals last year we didn’t get it done. I feel like we’re in a better space with that,” he said.

“I think our general game is in better order. I think our stoppage game is in better order. I think our attack is in better order. But it’s a new season now. So who knows?”

The Giants could make as many as five changes for the finals, with first-choice players Jesse Hogan, Jake Stringer, Brent Daniels, Jack Buckley and Josh Kelly all a chance to return from injury after the pre-finals bye.

“It’ll be an interesting match committee that’ll probably last the next fortnight, around do we bring in five guys who haven’t played in a couple of weeks, a couple of months?” Kingsley said. “That’ll be the discussion point.”

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Dog of a day for flat Bevo

By Marc McGowan

Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge has conceded his side will miss finals after failing against a top-eight rival again in a 15-point final-round defeat to Fremantle.

The Bulldogs led the Dockers by 16 points early in Sunday’s contest at Marvel Stadium before Fremantle’s seven-goal-to-none, second-quarter avalanche propelled them to a victory that sealed their first finals berth since 2022.

Beveridge’s Dogs, who won only twice in 10 matches against top-eight opponents this year, need an injury-ravaged Essendon to cause a major boilover on the Gold Coast on Wednesday night against the Suns to qualify for September.

Barring that highly unlikely scenario, the Bulldogs will finish ninth for the second time in three seasons despite winning 14 games in 2025.

A tough pill to swallow: Desperate disappointment for the Western Bulldogs.

A tough pill to swallow: Desperate disappointment for the Western Bulldogs.Credit: Getty Images

“Everyone’s as flat as a shit-carter’s [hat]. There’s no doubt about that,” Beveridge said. “I thought Fremantle played extremely well. They’ve been a good side this year ... [but] I didn’t think we played that poorly. I thought we were well in it, but we didn’t capitalise on some stuff – and they definitely did.

“We can’t have a woe-is-us attitude ... there just haven’t been enough upsets for 14 wins to get in. Essendon beating Gold Coast is as long a shot as there is, so we anticipate that our season’s probably done.”

Fremantle had this same chance 12 months ago at home to lock in a finals spot, only to suffer a fourth-straight loss to Port Adelaide and finish in 10th spot.

They then suffered back-to-back defeats to start this season to place the heat on coach Justin Longmuir, but fought their way back and staged a series of comebacks to remain in contention.

Five times, the Dockers rallied from three-quarter-time deficits – but a 57-point loss to reigning premiers Brisbane in Perth in the penultimate round left them vulnerable.

“I’m really proud of the group,” Longmuir said. “From the start of the week, I felt like we reset after the Brisbane game. We didn’t catastrophise it. We looked into it, and what wasn’t us, and we got back on the horse pretty quick, [and] straightened up.

“There were some pretty simple focuses, and I felt like there was that sort of performance coming all week from the attitude of the players.“

There were few signs at quarter-time of the Fremantle goalscoring explosion that was about to come.

But after the Dogs failed to fully capitalise on their contest dominance and 19 inside 50s in the opening quarter, the Dockers suddenly sprung to life with ruthless efficiency. It all started with a brilliant dribbling goal from Jye Amiss, and they never looked back in a quarter of highlight-reel goals and devastating transition running off Bulldogs turnovers.

Jye Amiss salutes the crowd.

Jye Amiss salutes the crowd.Credit: Getty Images

The Dogs threatened to stage their own comeback when Marcus Bontempelli – again his side’s best player – kicked a goal late in the third quarter to drag them within 25 points.

But Patrick Voss bounced through a goal from 50 metres out at the other end shortly after to thwart those efforts and leave the Bulldogs needing to reel in a 32-point three-quarter-time deficit. The Dogs never gave in, even after falling 44 points behind early in the final term.

An Aaron Naughton close-range goal cut the margin to 20 points with more than five minutes on the clock, but Fremantle hung tough to complete a season-defining triumph.

The HUGE umpiring decision late in the game

The controversial umpiring decision - a free kick paid against Hawthorn’s Karl Amon for insufficient intent deep into the last quarter.

The controversial umpiring decision - a free kick paid against Hawthorn’s Karl Amon for insufficient intent deep into the last quarter.Credit: Fox Footy

Congrats Zorko on 300 matches

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Lions ‘too good tonight’, says Hawk

By Peter Ryan

Lloyd Meek in the Hawthorn rooms: ”Really tough, it is hard at this end of the year. Everyone knows how important those games are and we gave it our all and Brisbane were too good tonight. So hopefully get to play them again at some point and a week off, reset, take plenty of positives out of it but gutted at this point.”

The finishing positions (so far)

NOTE: Gold Coast (in ninth spot) have the chance to grab a finals spot when they play Essendon on Wednesday. The Suns must win.

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ANALYSIS: Late controversy but ‘Lions deserved the win’

The Brisbane Lions made hard work of it, but the reigning premiers are back in their fifth qualifying final in seven seasons after defeating a gallant Hawks by 10 points in a classic encounter at the Gabba.

The win puts them into a qualifying final against Geelong, who they have beaten in their past three encounters. Hawthorn have to wait to see whether Gold Coast beat Essendon and the margin before knowing if they finish seventh or eighth to play the Giants or Fremantle away in an elimination final.

The Lions were the better team with their midfield dominating but were unable to capitalise on their territory advantage kicking 0.8 in the first quarter and then 2.9 in the third quarter.

It took a dubious umpiring decision against Hawthorn for insufficient intent to settle the contest with just two points separating the two teams with six minutes left.

Bruce Reville goaled from the free kick which should be debated as it is not what the rule intends and the Lions immediately kicked another goal through Cameron Rayner from a centre clearance and the match was over.

Such a call was disappointing however the Lions deserved the win.

They won the inside 50 count and their three best midfielders Hugh McCluggage, Josh Dunkley and Will Ashcroft were better than the Hawks who relied on bounce from half back to score.

Their guns were Amon and Jarman Impey who used the ball bravely to ensure the Hawks kept turning up and hanging in the contest. But they could not get their noses back in front.

Jack Ginnivan and Mabior Chol were the Hawks best forwards while Kai Lohmann and Rayner turned the match for the Lions.

The Lions would have been ruing their inaccuracy if they had lost but it was not completely unexpected as their accuracy has been an issue on more than one occasion during Chris Fagan’s reign as coach.

It has been a tough year for the purists but the match at the Gabba reclaimed some ground with a classic between the Brisbane Lions and Hawthorn.

Dayne Zorko, who played his 300th game, said the team were saying at quarter time the goalkicking could not get any worse (of course it did in the third quarter).

“The message [at quarter-time] was ‘don’t get frustrated and move on’,” Charlie Cameron told Channel 7.

The top six is set: Adelaide vs Collingwood, Geelong vs Brisbane Lions, GWS Giants vs either Hawthorn or Gold Coast, Fremantle vs either Hawthorn or Gold Coast. Four opening finals in four states and a guaranteed final in Queensland in either second or third week of finals.

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