Seven Minutes, Zero Doubt: Lions Smash Crows Into Next Week

Okay, I need a minute. That was legit one of the most complete forty-five minutes of footy I’ve watched all year, and it came from my team, at my ground, with a three-peat literally hanging off the result. Brisbane didn’t just beat Adelaide on Saturday night, they took the Crows’ pulse, found it weak, and went for the kill in a seven-minute stretch that will get replayed on highlight reels for years.

21.18 (144) to 13.13 (91). A 53-point semi-final win. Read that scoreline again, because it does not read like a team that’s been under pressure all September about whether their best footy has gone missing. It reads like a team that just remembered who they are.

The blitz that broke the game open

We all know the cliche about premiership teams having a purple patch in them, that stretch where the game just tips sideways and never comes back. Brisbane found theirs and it was ruthless. For about seven minutes of real time, Adelaide simply could not get the ball forward of centre. Every stoppage went the Lions’ way, every fifty-fifty contest got smashed, and the scoreboard did what scoreboards do when a team of this quality gets a sniff — it snowballed.

The composure in front of goal during that stretch was the bit that got me. This wasn’t scrambly, lucky footy. It was clean disposal out of the middle, quick ball movement, and forwards hitting the scoreboard like it was training on a Tuesday. When your side is that clinical for even a short burst, opposition coaches can call all the timeouts they want — the momentum’s gone, and it doesn’t come back the same night.

The midfield brigade was genuinely no notes

People have been asking all finals series whether Brisbane’s engine room still had another level in it after a few patchy weeks, and the answer on Saturday was a very loud yes. The clearance work was elite, the pressure around the ball insane, and every time Adelaide tried to build any rythym through the middle, there was a Lion arriving a half-second earlier to shut it down.

What I love about this midfield group is they don’t need the ball in their own hands to hurt you — the tackle pressure alone forced turnovers that led directly to scores. That’s premiership-team stuff. You can have all the talent in the world, but finals are won on the stuff that doesn’t show up as neatly on a stat sheet: the chase, the smother, the bloke who runs sixty metres to lay a tackle he didn’t have to lay.

Adelaide weren’t disgraced, they just ran into a buzzsaw

I want to be fair here because the Crows had a genuinely strong season and didn’t exactly play a shocker — they kicked 13 goals in a semi-final, which on another night against another opponent is a very respectable total. They just happened to run into a Brisbane side that decided this was the week to put together four full quarters instead of two-and-a-half.

It’s the kind of result that will sting for Adelaide fans for a while, especially the manner of it, but you could argue their season was always going to hinge on whether they could match it with the top two or three sides in the comp for a full match, and Saturday night gave a pretty clear answer. No shame in it. The Lions at their absolute best are a different level to basically anyone else in the competition right now, and Adelaide found that out the hard way in front of a rocking Gabba crowd.

Why this result matters more than just the scoreline

The margin is one thing, but the psychology of it is the bigger story for me. This Brisbane group has had doubters circling all finals series — are the older legs tired, has the fire gone out chasing a third flag in a row, all that noise. A performance like this doesn’t just win a game, it answers a question the whole footy media has been asking on repeat.

It also sends a message to Hawthorn ahead of the prelim. The Hawks have been the form side of the competition’s younger brigade all year and deserve every bit of the hype, but they now know exactly what they’re walking into at the MCG: a Brisbane outfit that just reminded everyone it can turn a contest into a procession inside a single quarter. That’s a psychological weapon as much as a football one.

What Brisbane need to nail against Hawthorn

• Replicate the pressure, not just the scoreline — the pressure numbers were what created the seven-minute blitz, and Hawthorn’s young legs will test that over four quarters differently to how Adelaide did.
• Control the middle stanza — Brisbane have shown all September they can be slow starters; against a team as dangerous as the Hawks they can’t afford another sluggish first quarter.
• Keep the forward line honest — 21 goals is a huge number but it needs the same efficiency at the MCG, a ground that plays differently to the Gabba.
• Manage the occasion — a prelim at the MCG is its own beast, and composure under that kind of noise and pressure will matter as much as talent.

The bigger picture for footy in Queensland

Can we also just sit with what this means for the growth of the game up here for a sec. A third straight Grand Final appearance on the cards would be an absolutely massive moment for footy in this state, and it’s not lost on me how much that matters beyond just the win-loss column. Kids in Brisbane and the Gold Coast growing up thinking premierships are a normal thing for their team, that’s the kind of cultural shift that changes a state’s relationship with the game for a generation.

And can we talk about the crowd energy at the Gabba during that blitz? That building was absolutely rocking, the kind of atmosphere that gets a young Queensland footy fan hooked for life. That stuff matters just as much as the ladder position when you’re talking about growing the game somewhere it hasn’t always been number one.

Bring on the Hawks

So here we are — a preliminary final at the MCG against a Hawthorn side that’s been the form team of the back half of the year, and a Brisbane side that just reminded the competition exactly why they’ve won the last two flags. It’s genuinely one of the must-watch matchups of the finals series, two teams playing footy that’s easy on the eye and hard on opponents.

I’m not going to sit here and pretend it’s a lock either way. Hawthorn have earned every bit of respect they’re getting. But if Brisbane bring anything like that seven-minute stretch to the MCG, even in patches, this three-peat dream stays very much alive. Bring it on.