Joe Daniher

A cool Thursday night greeted the visiting Lions, and they were a little slow out of the box. Melbourne's Alex Neal-Bullen got the scoring underway when he snapped on the outside of his boot from 40 meters out early in the first quarter. The Demons playing their fourth match in 20 days. The Lions quickly remembered their Fitzroy roots though, adjusted to the conditions and Hipwood evened the ledger at the Punt Rd end. Big Joe Daniher missed his first set shot, but with the aid of a 50-meter penalty a few minutes later he kicked the Lion's second. Bailey Fritsch marked strongly just inside the 50-meter arc for the Demons and kicked his first for the night. And already halfway through the quarter it looked like this could be a shootout.

Hipwood managed to lose May for a second time on the lead and from 25 meters straight in front kept up his end of the bargain and likewise Daniher was again able to beat Lever on the lead and kick his goal from 40 meters out giving the Lions a 14 point lead at quarter time.   Brisbane winning the bulk of the center clearances and delivering the ball well to their big men up forward.

The Fremantle Dockers overwhelmed the Brisbane Lions to register a gutsy win against the shocked Brisbane Lions. The win comes at a cost of three injuries to the Dockers but fueled their self-belief as their undermanned team held off the Lions. The Lions started with a hot opening quarter and appeared determined to atone for their shock loss to Carlton in Brisbane. Forwards Eric Hipwood and Joe Daniher were mobile and flying for Brisbane early. Hipwood had a mark and goal within three minutes of the opening bounce. Their midfielders Josh Dunkley, Hugh McCluggage, Jarrod Berry, and Cam Rayner kept the ball alive with repeated entries into the Brisbane forward line. The flustered Dockers fumbled the ball early and brain fades gave away two easy goals to Brisbane, to send shivers through the partisan home crowd.

When Zac Bailey booted their fourth goal after a turnover from yet another wayward Docker kick, it looked very much a game between last year's second-best team against last year's fourteenth placed team. Alex Pearce and Luke Ryan became a steadying factor in the Dockers' defense and the Docker midfielders Caleb Serong, Andrew Brayshaw, and Nat Fyfe lifted their work rates to shut down the feed to the Brisbane forward line. Even though the midfield battle had evened, the Dockers continued to butcher their attacking entries through poor kicking. After twenty-seven minutes of inept play, the Dockers made a tentative foray from defense which resulted in Bailey Banfield gathering a ball in a pack and kicking truly. Two minutes later a perfect stoppage tap from Luke Jackson found Sam Switkowski who kicked the Dockers' second goal on the siren.

A wet evening in Melbourne led up to tonight's Preliminary Final at the MCG with a spot in the Grand Final on the line. A respectable crowd of 77,677 rolled into the MCG. Much more than the 30,000 currently able to fit into the Cats home at Kardinia Park.  While the travel down the M1 to Melbourne might be a slight inconvenience to Geelong club and its fans, the interstate trip from Brisbane definitely makes them the away team. The Lions brought back Joe Daniher (returning after missing last week for the birth of his child), and Oscar McInerney into the team after missing due to concussion previously. Darcy Fort and Tom Fullarton were omitted. 

The first quarter was an "arm wrestle". The first 20 minutes saw the traditional feeling out period with one goal to each team, Dangerfield in the first minute and McCarthy in the eleventh minute. The Cats kicked the next two goal's through Stengle and Dangerfield, Hawkins almost added another but his set shot went just right of the post.  Ah Chee broke the run of play when he kicked the Lions second but the lead again extended out to 14 points when Holmes kicked Geelong's fourth just before the quarter time siren. 

The free agency period began at the end of October and ran through the first week of November. The first day was a busy one with five players heading to other clubs. The breakdown on the first day:

An extended round six kicked off with the unusual Wednesday night game that saw Richmond victorious by 43 points over the struggling Melbourne Demons. The Anzac Day battle between Collingwood and Essendon was a classic that ended with the Magpies hanging on to win by four points in controversial circumstances as the Bombers fell just short of pulling off a great comeback. Brisbane, Port Adelaide, Fremantle and the Giants took care of business as expected while Carlton almost pulled off back to back victories before succumbing by just five points to a frantic Hawthorn down in Tasmania.

A glorious autumn day was on offer at the MCG for the traditional ANZAC day clash between Collingwood and Essendon football clubs.  Pre-match saw former servicemen in a motorcade around the ground and both teams entered the field to run through a joint banner with “Always remembered” across the top in reference to those servicemen and women that served and fell in wars. The commemoration service was completed in the middle of the ground and the Australian and New Zealand anthems played then teams moved to their final warmups.