Hi y'all - just sharing the news of Brisbane's mighty effort in winning the AFL premiership. So far, this win has cost me a shout for the bar, and my beloved moustache (which had been with me for 15 years). The winner of the bet (and my chief tormentor) rang from Florence Italy about half an hour ago - she was just checking to see if my upper lip was naked, and demanded photographic proof
. For those of you interested in Australian Rules Football :
Quote:
Already widely acclaimed as the game's greatest ever player, Matthews today became the first coach to win a premiership with a team from a non-traditional Australian rules state after Brisbane steamrolled Essendon to win the grand final at the MCG today.
The Lions came from behind at halftime to win 15.18 (108) to 12.10 (82).
The triumph meant Matthews became only the seventh man to coach two different clubs to premierships.
And today's historic win came 11 years after Matthews broke the most famous drought in AFL history by leading Collingwood to its first premiership in 32 years in 1990.
But this victory will be remembered as an even more extraordinary effort.
Brisbane, a team which finished bottom in 1998 - the year before Matthews took over - downed an Essendon outfit which came into the grand final having won 62 of its past 73 games and was aiming for back-to-back premierships.
'We always felt that Sydney or Brisbane winning an AFL premiership was the insurmountable thing in footy, the Mount Everest of footy,' Matthews said of the Lions' stunning victory.
'So to have done that with this group of players gives me an enormous amount of self-satisfaction.'
The Lions won despite an attack of the goalkicking jitters in the first half which saw them trail by 14 points at halftime, even though they had enjoyed 15 scoring shots to Essendon's 14.
Fittingly, a Brisbane player who had been with the club since its days as the 'joke' team of the competition - when it was based on the Gold Coast and lost nearly every week in the early 1990s - took out the Norm Smith Medal for best afield today.
The quietly spoken, deeply religious Shaun Hart was a worthy recipient of the medal with a gutsy four quarter display.
His effort proved the Lions did not just have to rely on their 'Fab Four' midfield of Brownlow Medal winners Michael Voss and Jason Akermanis and fellow All-Australian representatives Nigel Lappin and Simon Black to win big games.
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Three cheers for the Lions (and a
).
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