Ashley Smith

Brisbane has a good record at the Gabba and has not lost an encounter against the West Coast Eagles at its home ground in five years. Conditions were wet and slippery after six hours of torrential rain but the Eagles had a lot at stake, fighting for fourth position on the Ladder to secure a home Final. The opening of the game proved that the Lions were not going to make it easy for them.

A sellout crowd of over 40,000 fans packed Patersons Stadium to see the West Coast Eagles take on a determined Geelong Cats. This was a chance for the Eagles to prove that they were real contenders for the Finals even without the in-form Quinten Lynch, who had been suspended for rough contact the week before. Geelong have not lost two games in a row for so long that people have arguments about when that was. The script was supposed to read that the Eagles would put up a valiant fight but go down in the end by five or six goals – but it didn’t go according to the script by a long way.