Key events
Nick Watson is a key to the Hawks’ premiership hopes after booting 57 goals in just his third AFL season. Jonathan Horn wrote about the small forward who already looms as a generational player in our free weekly AFL newsletter From the Pocket: sign up for it here.
There’s long stretches where he won’t be sighted. But he’s always the dominant presence on the field. He’s the Hawthorn player who gets in the opposition’s head, whether it’s the defender seeking to exit without being mown down, or the match committee preparing for a game. A fortnight ago, Fremantle opted for the insurance policy of Brandon Walker, who hadn’t played since early March. Walker was picked for his speed, and he performed admirably. But he was unable to mitigate the Watson moments. The first came when Walker momentarily lost contact with him, Watson motored in on his blind spot, parted a pack of Dockers, and volleyed a goal at full pelt. No one else in Australia could have kicked that goal. No one else would have even attempted it. And no one could have stopped him.
Final teams are in with no late changes.
Hawthorn named an unchanged lineup from the 23 that impressed with an ambush of Fremantle in their qualifying final at Optus Stadium.
Brisbane resisted the urge to recall Noah Answerth after he contained Nick Watson the last time these two sides met, with the defender still sidelined with an ankle injury. That allows Ty Gallop to retain his spot after he made the most of his opportunity in the semi-final win against Adelaide.
Preamble
Martin Pegan
Hello and welcome to live coverage of the AFL preliminary final between Hawthorn and Brisbane at the MCG. The winner of this game will face Fremantle in the AFL grand final at the MCG next Saturday.
Hawthorn have been able to sit back and watch as all but two other teams have dropped out of contention since their rollicking qualifying final victory against the Dockers. As the final siren sealed that rousing triumph on the road, the widely held view was that Sam Mitchell’s side would avoid meeting Brisbane until a possible grand final matchup. But a finals series very rarely, if ever, follows the script – and here we are, a week earlier than forecast, with the Hawks instead crossing paths with the two-time reigning premiers for a spot in the decider.
The Hawks have quietly become the form side of the competition with only one defeat – and a draw – in their past eight matches. Though that loss was one they would prefer to forget as they were hammered by a certain team from the sunshine state.
Brisbane roared back to life with a commanding win against Adelaide in a semi-final, after dishing up one of their all-too common listless performances against an undermanned Sydney a week earlier. The Lions have shown over several years that as much as they can fail to show up for a game here and there, they are just capable of rising as the stakes do. And the path they have ended up on is much the same as the past two years, when they won Saturday twilight preliminary finals at the MCG and went on to win back-to-back flags.
The Lions are now two wins away from sealing a rare premiership three-peat, and becoming just the third side in almost seven decades to claim as many flags in successive seasons. The previous two were of course the Hawks in 2013-15 and the Lions themselves in 2001-03.
For all of their recent success, the Hawks and the Lions meet for the first time in a final since 1986 when the latter were still under the Fitzroy banner and yet to merge with the Brisbane Bears. First ball-up will be at 5.15pm in Melbourne / AEST. I’ll drop in the team news shortly. Meanwhile, shoot me an email with your thoughts and predictions. Let’s get into it!
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