Three weeks ago, Geelong were imperious in handing Brisbane a 38-point Qualifying Final loss.
On the night, the Cats looked flawless, executing their plan to near-perfection. It wasn’t as if the Lions played badly but rather lowered their colours to a better opponent on the night. Chris Fagan admitted as much in his post-match press conference.
Saturday’s Grand Final preview on The Shinboner looked at what happened in the Qualifying Final and the lessons to learn heading into the decider.
This post effectively functions as a Part 2 to that preview, looking at tweaks Brisbane made to win the ultimate prize. Those tweaks took effect gradually, little-by-little, then suddenly all at once.
This is, naturally, the last in-game post on The Shinboner from the 2025 AFL season.
Thanks to all who have read throughout the season, offered suggestions, and engaged start to finish. Through the trade period there’ll be a couple of ad-hoc posts, along with continuing to update the list management tools.
But apart from that, it’s curtains until the 2026 pre-season.
Slightly changing their ball use
It wasn’t as if Brisbane turned into a handballing, running and carrying powerhouse on a dime. They continued to kick their way down the field, but the key was a shift in how it happened.
Brisbane were the number one short kicking team of the year heading into Grand Final day. The change against Geelong was a willingness to go long more often than previous encounters. If we look at the Lions’ game-by-game splits in 2025, Saturday saw their highest percentage of long kicks since Round 1.
After their season opener against Sydney at the SCG, Round 13 v Adelaide – a slog in the wet – was the only time Brisbane got close to their long kick mark on Grand Final day.
| Brisbane’s five highest long kicking games of 2025 | % of long kicks | % of short kicks |
| Round 1 v Sydney | 52.9% | 47.1% |
| Grand Final v Geelong | 48.6% | 51.4% |
| Round 13 v Adelaide | 47.8% | 52.2% |
| Round 3 v Geelong | 42.9% | 57.1% |
| Round 17 v Port Adelaide | 42.2% | 57.8% |
(And if you’d like to joke about the SCG surface making games there resemble a wet weather match sometimes, that would also be acceptable)
How longer kicks stretched Geelong’s defence
Long kicks don’t necessarily mean 55 metre bombs to contests, nor does it mean using it all the time, as the above splits showed. It’s more about other options instead of 15-20 metre chips.
The point of it all was to get Geelong’s defence moving and contemplating multiple options, which then opened up more options as the game went on.
For example, these two screenshots are taken only a couple of minutes apart. Both times we can see the free Lion wandering into space slightly longer than the short corridor kick we’ve grown so accustomed to Brisbane taking at every opportunity:
One time the option wasn’t used, but the second time it was used.
From there, another long kick found plenty of space in Brisbane’s forward 50, and look what happened:
In addition to the above, there was a simple willingness to take ground even if it was the furthest thing from a perfect execution.
Clips like this kick from Darcy Wilmot…
…or this entire passage going from half back to a forward pocket throw in…
…along with it being very un-Brisbane, it all had a cumulative effect of pushing and pulling Geelong’s defensive setup into situations they weren’t comfortable with.
Over time, that uncomfortableness resulted in a defence stretched to breaking point and then beyond.
But before the ball movement tweak could kick in, first Brisbane had to rectify their Qualifying Final issues at the source.
The pressure going way up
Saturday was Brisbane’s third highest pressure factor of the year, and more importantly their third highest pressure differential for 2025.
In the Qualifying Final, Geelong were able to make the most of their stoppage wins and score at an obscenely efficient rate. In the Grand Final, Brisbane’s increased pressure prevented the same thing from happening again.
The pressure factor is just a number though, and the result of a process. To go back and understand what changed around contests, we need to look at the tweaks around stoppages and contests.
Because with Oisin Mullin continuing to tag Hugh McCluggage out of any influence until he was needed down back, these tweaks allowed the midfield to gradually get on top of Geelong.
Changing stoppage responsibilities
In the first half it was Zac Bailey and Cam Rayner alternating between midfield spurts and coming up from half-forward to play as extra midfielders.
In the second half, after Lachie Neale’s introduction, it was mainly Bailey coming up from half-forward as Rayner stayed as a more ‘traditional’ half-forward, if anything Rayner does can be described as such.
Because Geelong like to hold their defensive structure behind the ball and around the outer layer of contests, it often meant Brisbane had an extra player around what I’ll call the ‘inside layer’ of the stoppage.
Some examples from screenshots; although the extra player is circled at the time of the grab, often that’d change as the stoppage developed and teammates would hand responsibilities to each other:
Brisbane’s half backs – mainly Jaspa Fletcher, with a side of Darcy Wilmot – took care of Geelong’s half forwards coming up to contests. That, combined with the extra Brisbane number at stoppages more often than not, was a major subplot in the game.
Brisbane’s seamless switching between attacking if they won first possession, or defending if Geelong did, allowed the Lions to nullify the Cats’ incredible stoppage efficiency from the Qualifying Final.
The avalanche in stoppage scoring
Now we’ve established the structural side of stoppage tweaks, this section is all about how it led to Brisbane scoring. And a lot of it.
Behold the change from Qualifying Final to Grand Final:
| Brisbane | Geelong | |
| QF Clearances | 37 | 38 |
| QF Points from Clearances | 21 | 50 |
| GF Clearances | 52 | 37 |
| GF Points from Clearances | 73 | 29 |
Opening the front of the stoppage
Although Brisbane were constantly trying – and succeeding – in doing this all over the ground, using centre bounces here is the easiest way to illustrate because of fewer overall numbers and more room to operate.
It worked in two ways: if Brisbane won the ball, they’d have more room to run out and go forward as often as possible. But also if Geelong gained possession and were forced backwards, it allowed Lions half forwards to come up and stop any clean chains from developing.
And when I say half forwards, I mostly mean Rayner:
Luckily there were plenty of centre bounces in the last quarter, which allows plenty of opportunities for screenshots to show how Brisbane’s movement was opening angles:
When Geelong countered, Brisbane counter-countered
All the movement we’ve seen to this point – half backs taking care of Geelong half forwards, Brisbane half forwards moving in and out, looking to clear out the front of stoppages, players getting on the fly rolling through contests – all had Cats scrambling to restore any sense of normality by the last quarter.
Brisbane, a step ahead of the game, countered Geelong’s counter for what more or less was the sealing goal before party time started.
At a forward 50 stoppage, we see Gryan Miers setting up to catch a Brisbane player – in this case, Lachie Neale – as he prepares to run through the contest.
Neale shapes to set up on the front side of the stoppage as well, but suddenly he doubles back, earning prime inside position to receive the Darcy Fort ruck tap and creating a two-on-one, doubling up with Will Ashcroft against Bailey Smith.
A handball from Neale to Ashcroft, a snap, and the celebrations commenced:
It was the symbolic culmination of what Brisbane learned from a Qualifying Final defeat and turned around to win the ultimate prize.
Lots of movement, lots of small, subtle tweaks, it wore Geelong down, and then floodgates opened. While 2024’s journey to the flag was special, 2025’s was magnitudes better.