McCluggage Ices It: Lions Into Another Granny, No Notes

I genuinely lost my voice somewhere in the last quarter and I have zero regrets about it. Hugh McCluggage walked up in the final minute like it was a Tuesday training drill and iced the Hawks to send this Brisbane Lions team back to the grand final, and honestly, my heart still hasn’t come down from wherever it went.

This was not a comfortable win. This was not a Lions-dominate-from-quarter-time kind of afternoon. This was the kind of preliminary final that ages you five years in four quarters, and I am here for every single minute of it being an absolute classic.

The start nobody wanted to see

Before we even got to the good stuff, the game had one of those moments that makes your stomach drop. Jai Newcombe and Lachie Neale collided hard in the middle after Meek and Draper had gone up in the ruck contest, and Neale was down on the turf for a good while. Anyone who follows this Lions side knows what Neale means to this midfield brigade — dual Brownlow medallist, the heartbeat of the engine room — so seeing him spread eagled at the MCG with 100,000-odd people going dead silent was legitimately scary.

Credit to him, because footy players are built different, he got up and got through it. But it set the tone for a contest that was always going to be brutal at the coalface. Hawthorn didn’t come to Melbourne to make up the numbers, and from that first bump it was obvious this was going to be a dogfight all night.

Hawthorn’s young guns refused to read the script

Can we just acknowledge how good this Hawthorn side is going to be for years to come, because it needs saying even as a Lions fan writing through gritted teeth. This is a team stacked with kids who play like finals footy is their natural habitat, and they threw everything at Brisbane in patches that had the away end of the MCG absolutely rocking.

There were periods in the second and third term where the Hawks controlling the ball inside their forward 50 and Brisbane looked genuinely rattled. Every time you thought the Lions had settled it, Sam Mitchell’s mob found another gear and dragged it back. That’s the sign of a proper contender, not a team happy to just be there. Hawthorn fans should be walking away from this one gutted but proud, because their kids will be doing this again, probably more than once.

Lachie Neale, the ultimate captain’s mentality

Coming back onto the ground after that head knock scare, Neale didn’t just survive the rest of the game, he was arguably Brisbane’s best afterward. This bloke has been doing it for a decade now and he still finds another level when the lights are brightest. If there was any doubt about his fitness or his footy smarts after that collision, he answered it the only way he knows how — by winning the footy in traffic over and over again when his team needed it most.

It’s the sort of performance that reminds you why this Lions midfield is feared right across the competition. Neale, McCluggage, the whole engine room — they just don’t stop coming, and in a game this tight that relentlessness is what got Brisbane home.

McCluggage’s moment

Okay, the goal. THE goal. With under a minute on the clock and the margin sitting at a kick, Hugh McCluggage gets the ball in space, takes his time — actually takes his time, like the man has a pulse rate of about 40 — and slots it truly to put the result beyond doubt. The MCG just erupted. I was watching with a mate who is not even a Lions supporter and he legit stood up and screamed.

That composure is what separates the good players from the ones who become September legends. McCluggage has been building towards this kind of moment for a few years now, quietly becoming one of the best mids in the comp without always getting the headline runs, and now he’s got the biggest highlight of his career sitting there for everyone to see forever. No notes on that finish, none at all.

What this means for Brisbane

Back-to-back grand final appearances is not a fluke, it’s a genuine window, and this club deserves every bit of credit for building something sustainable rather than a flash-in-the-pan premiership window that shuts after one crack. The development pathway out of Queensland is finally producing the depth this list needed, and you can see it in how many different players stood up across four quarters when the game was hanging in the balance.

There’s also something bigger going on here for the game in this state. Every time this team plays finals footy in front of packed houses and delivers moments like McCluggage’s goal, it’s another reason for kids in Brisbane and the Gold Coast and everywhere in between to fall in love with this sport. I talk about growing footy in Queensland a lot because I think it genuinely matters, and nights like this one do more for that cause than any marketing campaign ever could.

The grand final awaits

There will be time this week to break down every stat, every match-up, every selection call the coaches will be weighing up for the granny. Right now though, I just want to sit in this one. A preliminary final that had a scary injury scare, a fierce contest from a young Hawthorn outfit that will be back, and a captain-worthy response from Lachie Neale, capped off by an ice-cold McCluggage snap that will be replayed for years.

Brisbane Lions are back in the big one. However this grand final unfolds, this club and its fans deserve to enjoy this feeling for exactly as long as it lasts, because moments like Hugh McCluggage’s are the reason we all fall in love with this insane, brilliant game in the first place.