AFL Round 18: My Dad goes to Lions dinner but Pies win anyway

By Liam Fahey

It was cold at the MCG when I arrived. My Dad had deserted me and gone to the Brisbane Lions dinner (the traitor), so I had to track down Uncle Stephen (Stephen said my Dad had Medallion Club Mick-ed us). When I got to my seat, I sat down and had the back of my shirt soaked by the water on the back of the chair. I was pretty annoyed but I thought, “ah well, hopefully things get better after this”.

The game started off OK with Dane Swan having a Leon Davis-type shot which clipped the back of the post. After that Leon did a terrible handball in our back line which allowed Daniel Merrett to kick the first goal of the match. Then a crushing blow to Collingwood’s backline, with Presti being whacked in the head and taken off. Leigh Brown started to play on Jonathon Brown but he could not stop Brown (the second one) from dominating the game. At quarter-time we were lucky to still be in touch.

The second quarter we fumbled the ball and failed to hit targets, but still managed to make our way back into the game. Pendlebury, Swan, Davis and Didak were all getting plenty of touches, but too much was being left to too few. Entering time-on we held a slender lead but switched off, allowing Brisbane to kick three goals, putting them in front by 14 points going into the second half.

At half-time I was sitting in my seat sipping one of those home-brand Primas while I watched uncle Stephen stirring his green tea and spreading something on his Lebanese bread when my Dad called to tell me how good the chicken tasted and how much he loved the drinks they were serving.

At the start of the second half we needed something special. Our prayers were answered when Jack Anthony took a legendary specky in our forward 50 and went back to kick a goal. From then on the game just kept getting better. We were having more shots on goal and we had Nick Maxwell to help Leigh Brown contain Jonathon Brown. Leon Davis kicked a beautiful goal from the boundary; in fact he probably is more accurate from there than from 30 metres out directly in front. Pendles dominated in the clearances (while racking up Super Coach points) and at the end of the quarter Collingwood had shut down Brisbane with 11 scoring shots to 2.

We were entering the final quarter 20 points up; the match could still go either way. But once everyone realised Presti was back on, there seemed to be a team desire to get him a goal. Although he didn’t achieve this he kicked two of the best points I have ever seen in an AFL match. In fact we had 12 shots on goal in the last quarter but only managed to kick 3 majors.

About 15 minutes in I didn’t really have to watch the game to know what was going on. If we did something good the guy in front of me would start screaming out “YEEEESSS! YEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSS!” and if we did something bad the guy behind me would just repeat over and over again, “This is cr@p”.

The final siren sounded with Collingwood winning by a solid 40 points. My brother was talking to me about something but I was too busy trying to remember all the highlights of the match that I was going to put in my report.

Votes for the Horsbrough Medal are now under lock and key to be read out on the big night. The Jarrod Molloy Medal will be awarded to the player best on ground.

Comments

  1. Great win Liam. Does that make up for getting Cam Wood?

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