Round 18 – Brisbane v Essendon: Foundation stones and bedrocks

Round 18

Brisbane v Essendon

4:40pm, Sunday 12 July 2026

Gabba

 

By Shane Reid

 

Of course, the Lions will win, so say the many experts who prophesise with their pens and caustic commentary. But I’m old enough to fear Essendon as much as I hate them. Their time will come again as surely as ours will end. The slow one now will later be fast, the present now will later be past. Hopefully Fages and the lads have been writing on their storied, and hopefully now secret, whiteboard some reminders about the perils of hubris.

The remainder of 2026 presents the Lions with a rare opportunity. Empires end, fortune is fickle. The present now, will later be past and in just a few short years these times, ahem, will start a changing.

As Fages is interviewed before the game the Bombers cheer squad walks behind him uncomfortably close. There’s a bloke with a bald spot which speaks to someone old enough to perhaps remember better days for the Bombers. He takes the opportunity to show the world the number five on the back of his jumper and his support for James Hird’s coaching candidacy.

The game, or should that be the fusillade, begins. Neale, Dunks, Morris, McKenna. The Lions are profligate with their inside fifties. Last week against Geelong we had seven entries for seven goals; this week it takes fifteen entries just to get our two.

Life seems cruel for Zach Merrett; first he is spoiled by a teammate when ready to take a safe mark and minutes later gets the ball tangled in his feet just before it safely finds the boundary line for what may be the most technical and unlucky out of bounds on the full in the games’ history. Lohmann, Ashcroft and McCluggage neaten the scoreboard up a bit for the Lions with some goals before quarter time.

The Dons will rise again in the years to come, and it will be players like Caddy and Duursma who become their bedrocks. Some fans in the crowd hold up a hastily crafted sign demanding that the universe MEGA (aka Make Essendon Great Again). One wonders if it is their President Welsh being cast as Trump in this scenario, with his property investment-based wealth, or the messianic Hird, whose chances of appointment are only being enhanced as Brisbane increase their lead.

The camera keeps finding interim coach Solomon looking troubled in his coaches’ box. There are sewer cleaners and telemarketers who enjoy their work more than this poor bugger.

The Lions have the luxury of developing their next era of success in the slipstream of premierships, with Ty Gallop who is sort of our spare, younger and trendier version of Harris, lining up on Caddy and Levi Ashcroft (our spare, slightly younger and more pugnacious Ashcroft) on Duursma. Mano a mano duels that will shape the next decade.

The Lions oscillate between casual Harlem Globetrotter style play and flagrant genius for the next two quarters. Exhibit A – Kai Lohmann, who has the rare knack of making everything he does look like it may end up on a highlight reel. For him, possessions and goals are merely the currency with which one can spend on outlandish celebrations.

Eric Hipwood, who has his critics, made his moments count. He takes a mark at the latitude and longitude of the forward pocket boundary line that only Wayne Harms has ever found before, followed by a miraculous goal at an angle. Former Bombers Draper and McKenna play with a swaggering sort of schadenfreude as they and their shiny new teammates put the game beyond doubt. Draper has a moment with a don’t argue and then an inside out goal that has me wondering if he may be the most able ruckman in a Lions jumper since Matt Rendell. Similarly, my youngest daughter wonder if the nickname ‘Temu-Joe’ which she has applied to Sam may have been a bit unkind and hasty.

Bailey, Zorko and Ashcroft the elder, create construct, confound and compile.

I’ve made this link before. But allow me another moment for some parochial pride. The game took me and never let go when I was four. I watched a former Gippslander come to wear a Lions jumper with a number five on the back after beginning his career at the Bulldogs. Josh Dunkley ticks all of those boxes too, but unlike Superboot he is not really a goal kicker. So, for me, watching him mark outside fifty and go back and slot the goal was a moment that allowed me to wallow and celebrate in the foggy ruins of time of my boyhood.

It’s the last quarter. The result is assured. Even the pessimistic Leigh Matthews formula of “goals ahead versus minutes remaining” is only just mathematically feasibile for Essendon with Brisbane 95 points to the good at three quarter time. Games within games are all that is left now. Questions of the macro rather than the micro. Might this be Brisbane’s biggest ever win over Essendon? Could James Hird be appointed coach as early as the five-minute mark of the last quarter to provide some hope? Will Lachie Neale and Zac Bailey enjoy the rort so much that they will cry out – millions be damned! – and ask the runner to bring out contract extensions for to sign before the game is over? And most importantly perhaps, will the Lions win by enough make up the percentage gap that Adelaide have compiled with their big win over Gold Coast to climb into the top four.

Predictably perhaps, the Lions hit the snooze button. Ty Gallop is amongst the most promising young key defender in the league and Harris Andrews is well, Harris Andrews. But Two-Metre-Peter Wright is, as the moniker suggests, quite tall and starts to take marks and kick goals. Before I can check the spelling of the word complacency for my notes, the commentators announce that with seven goals it is Essendon’s best quarter for 2026. Bob Dylan may call it throwing the bums a dime in our prime.

The foundation stone of the next decade for Brisbane, Will Ashcroft, finds two late goals to nudge us into the top four. The Lions lairise a bit with the hubris of Icarus trying to give the ball to one hundred gamer Darcy Wilmot in the last minute for a rare goal from our defender. It doesn’t happen but it matters not. Five wins in a row for Brisbane. Top four by a wafer-thin margin and scope for improvement.

 

Malarkey Votes:
3 – Lachie Neale
2 – Ty Gallop
1 – Will Ashcroft

 

BRISBANE     5.6       9.10     16.14  22.17 (149)
ESSENDON    0.3       1.6       1.9       8.11 (59)

GOALS
Brisbane: Lohmann 3, W.Ashcroft 3, Morris 2, L.Ashcroft 2, Hipwood 2, Cameron 2, Bailey 2, McKenna 2, Draper 2, McCluggage, Dunkley
Essendon: Wright 3, Caddy 2, Kako, McGrath, Durham

BEST
Brisbane: Neale, W.Ashcroft, Rayner, Draper, Gallop, L.Ashcroft, Zorko
Essendon: Wright, Robey, Jones, Durham

INJURIES
Brisbane: Nil
Essendon: Nil

Crowd: 30,505

 

Read other round 18 match reports HERE

 

Read more from Shane Reid HERE

 

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Our writers are independent contributors. The opinions expressed in their articles are their own. They are not the views, nor do they reflect the views, of Malarkey Publications.

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