Stay-at-home Brisbane Throng Goes Nuts
The Sunday Age
Sunday September 30, 2001
THE celebrations at the Southbank Piazza did not begin when Jason Akermanis tipped himself upside down for the most gleeful of his post-match handstands this season.
They did not begin when Michael Voss and Leigh Matthews held the premiership cup to the Melbourne sky a few minutes earlier.
And they didn't even start when Luke Power streamed into goal to put the final seal on Brisbane's first flag.
Instead, the party started more than two hours before the first bounce, when about 400 noisy Lions supporters - stuck at home - crowded inside the outdoor theatre.
When it ends is anybody's guess.
The Brisbane build-up to the year's biggest game had been more subdued than stunning but, among those people who cared about the game, there was a not-so-quiet confidence.
``There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that Brisbane will win," declared one local cabbie, a veteran of three AFL games, earlier in the week.
``The Brisbane Lions create history at the MCG," blurted one preview of the TV news (midway through the second term).
But as young children covered in face paint mingled with teenagers covered in face paint and grown adults covered in face paint the prospect of a final encounter with a tough Essendon side suddenly seemed a reality.
The crowd moaned as early shots on goal from Daniel Bradshaw, Jonathan Brown and Alastair Lynch wobbled nervously through for points, cheered when Lynch finally scored the opener, and moaned even louder when Scott Lucas' goal got the Bombers going too.
If the Lions were feeling the pressure when they headed into the rooms at half-time with a 14-point deficit to chase down, the Piazza people were doing things equally as hard. ``There's been a few wasted opportunties," said Lisa Marriott, a Saints turned Lions fan who came to watch with her husband and children.
``But the last quarter, that will be the telling one, and the thing about Brisbane is that it's a young team and they've got good stamina. So in the end we might just want it more."
They were prophetic words and - as the Lions did indeed run rings around the tiring Bombers - words that made the flag-waving more furious, the singing of the club song more raucous, and the crowd around the TV cameras beaming pictures across the nation increasingly insane.
GRAND FINAL CROWDS
(at the MCG since the Great Southern Stand opened)
1992 Geelong v West Coast 95,007
1993 Essendon v Carlton 96,862
1994 Geelong v West Coast 93,860
1995 Geelong v Carlton 93,149
1996 North Melbourne v Sydney 93,102
1997 St Kilda v Adelaide 98,828
1998 North Melbourne v Adelaide 94,431
1999 Kangaroos v Carlton 94,228
2000 Essendon v Melbourne 96,249
2001 Essendon v Brisbane 91,482
(current capacity of the MCG is 96,281).
© 2001 The Sunday Age