Round 13
Gold Coast Suns v Brisbane
5:15pm, Saturday 5th June 2026
People First Stadium
ALL THIS YOU WILL come to understand but can never
know, all of it took place long, long ago… in a forgotten
winter on an island of which few have ever heard… As
black clouds shroud the star and moonlit heavens, as an
unshadowable darkness comes upon the whispering land.
So begins ‘The Sound of One Hand Clapping,’ Richard Flanagan’s achingly brilliant novel. And so too do I sit to watch Q Clash 31. Fandom of a Fitzroy refugee like me has been redefined for me to such an extent that such consequence sits now in such a far-flung field as the Gold Coast.
One day, this era of the back-to-back Lions will cede into history, barely regarded amidst a football future yet to be written. Amidst resurgent Blue, Bomber and Tiger Empires our 2024-2025 heavyweight champions will be forgotten. One day. But perhaps not today.
Try to explain to six-year-old me, captured still in the folds of history, watching his Fitzroy at the Junction Oval, Victoria Park and Princes Park that his roving tribe would one day settle in Queensland. Yes, Queensland, and a future bright beyond his comprehension, amidst premiership drenched endless summers.
But it’s true, the Lions are wonky. The flags have fallen, Wharfies, Giants and Cats have breached the moat and laid siege to our back-to-back kingdom. The regal King David, or was that David King, did declare that come the climax of what is sure to be a game of consequence, the Suns and sun will rise over a new Queensland dawn as the Lions Fagan’s era is inked into history as part of the natural order of things. The empire will end.
Collingwood will claim Lachie Neale for their own, Zac Bailey will seek pastures green and bounty aplenty with the Crows and a new chapter of the middling Lions will return. The sound of one hand clapping around premiership cups will occupy only the memories of the small tribe of fans, like me, who will live amidst the black clouds and unshadowable darkness of which Richard Flanagan refers.
I wax on with such overwritten jibber only because it has been some time since my last contribution to the Almanac. I’ve tried the last few weeks to make starts only to throw down my pen in despair at what the Lions have dished up in the third quarters, match reports unfinished and abandoned as the fickle muses mocked my team and my feeble and failed literary attempts.
And this game wasn’t promising much. A day of marking and finalising reports for my classes, a game starting at 5.15, a need to pick up my family at the Traralgon train station at some stage in the second quarter, and football pundits suggesting that Lions fans need only watch to somberly observe last rites being given to our glorious era. No, nothing to feel enthused about. To rub it all in further, makes me feel more like a tolerated foster child of Brisbane more than the games when my team wears a Brisbane Bears jumper as they did last night.
But hark, what is this? Morris kicks a Quinlan like goal from outside fifty then a snap. Bailey zips and zags and even tackles. Our heavyweight champion of the world Harris Andrews takes a one-handed mark against the promising contender Ben (or is it Max?) King, and suddenly we are four goals up. They peg some back. Ben or Max is slotting goals from angles that only a private school VCE Specialist Maths student could conceive of. It’s quarter time, we have a game. Time for another cup of tea.
The second quarter settles. Gallop is back in the forward line tonight which gives Logan a much needed wing-man. There’s something about having coltish young men in a forward line, who throw themselves recklessly at a game they haven’t yet realised is hard. They don’t yet live laden lives of pressure. Neale is tallying up classy possessions like a batsman compiling runs. Gallop marks and lines up for goal, but my phone buzzes and I need to duck down to pick up my family. Does he kick it? Honestly, I’m still not sure.
Traralgon recently built a second train platform and one is never certain which carpark to use as a result. Murphy’s Law, my journey became slightly elongated as a result. It’s half time when I return with family in tow. The Lions are still winning and Logan has five goals to his name.
But here’s the rub. The third quarter, the ironically called premiership quarter for a team chasing another threepeat. That’s when the Cats and Dockers buried us. And the Giants, well… a VFL/AFL record score did they pillage from us in the third quarter. This is where it could all go horribly wrong. The only saving grace is that this is a twilight Q Clash, an expansion game that despite the presence of two-time premiers, few will be watching or regarding. If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it make a sound? What is the sound of one hand clapping?
Anyway, blows are traded but for the first time in a while, we are punching back and parrying with panache. It’s a Rocky film. Rope a dope, Muhammed Ali. Taking punches like Ben Long’s goals and Max King’s spatial awareness and mathematical acumen making even the legendary Harris look human. But we have our own young saplings. Morris finds his sixth goal and then takes a Careyesque pack mark that is not allowed by an umpire who clearly has no sense of narrative or the mythology being written.
Morris nonchalantly swaggers another mark and misses another goal before wing man Gallop extends the margin to four goals. My daughter has perhaps unfairly dubbed her new favourite player, Sam Draper, ‘Temu-Joe.’ He’s got the Essendon origin story, the lumbering lumberjack and lovable bushranger style of the laconic Daniher who turned her into a footy fan to be reckoned with. Maybe two-time premiership player, Darcy Fort, one of the many Mr Darcy’s in our team is ‘Shein Joe’ I think as he slots a no fuss, budget price goal to extend the lead again.
It’s the last quarter. There’s then minutes to go. King brings it back to four goals; Long makes it three. Petracca moves to the middle. The line it is drawn, the curse it is cast. Cards on the table. Stand and deliver. I’ve seen this script before. Logan Morris has never kicked more than six goals. He’s on the boundary line on the wrong side of the ground, the dark side of the moon, waiting to return – waiting for the game on the other side of the ground to return so he can execute an interchange. Fate seems against us. The footy Gods seem to like the cut of the Suns jib.
There’s six minutes to go, they need four goals. King, the mathematician could still create an era ending algorithm to ensnare us. Oh, my pessimism. Charlie ices the game. ‘He has so much self-belief doesn’t he,’ my wife, a casual observer of football at best, says with admiration. Logan gets goal number seven and we take the win. ‘Why would there be a medal and a cup?’ she asks with an insight she doesn’t understand as Logan takes to the podium for his ceremonial duties with Levi and Will’s dad, ‘do they do that for every game the Lions play now?’
Hopefully at least once more, I think. There’s plenty of season still to go.
GOLD COAST 2.2 7.4 9.7 11.9 (75)
BRISBANE 4.3 9.8 13.12 15.16 (106)
GOALS
Gold Coast: King 4, Walter 2, Long 2, Rowell, Petracca, Andrew
Brisbane: Morris 7, Cameron 2, Tunstill, McKenna, Gallop, Fort, Draper, Berry
BEST
Gold Coast: Noble, Uwland, Anderson, Moyle, Rioli
Brisbane: Morris, Neale, Wilmot, Dunkley, Bailey, Reville
INJURIES
Gold Coast: Weller (hamstring), Graham (hamstring), Humphrey (chest)
Brisbane: Nil
Crowd: 21,139
Read other round 13 match reports HERE
Read more from Shane Reid HERE
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Loving life as a husband, dad and teacher. I’m trying to develop enough skill as a writer so that one day Doc Wheildon’s Newborough, Bernie Quinlan’s Traralgon and Mick Conlon’s 86 Elimination final goal will be considered contemporaneous with Twain’s Mississippi, Hemingway’s Cuba, Beethoven’s 9th and Coltrane’s Love Supreme.
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