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www.ntnews.com.au Monday, June 24, 2013. NT NEWS. 19

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Ash McGrath of the Brisbane Lions celebrates with teammates after kicking the winning goal against the Geelong Cats Picture: Getty Images

Lions’ fantastic fairytaleBRISBANEVGEELONG

ByGREGDAVIS

LIONS 103

CATS 98BRISBANE

3.2 5.4 7.8 15.13 (103)

GEELONG5.3 9.7 13.10 14.14 (98)

Goals: Brisbane: A McGrath3 BMoloney 3 D Rich 2 D Zor-ko J Adcock J Brown J Lisle JPatfull M Golby P Hanley.Geelong: T Hawkins 3 AChristensen 2 S Johnson 2 SMotlop 2 A Mackie C Guthrie JMurdoch J Podsiadly MBlicavs.Best: Brisbane: S Black AMcGrath B Moloney D Rich DMerrett M Leuenberger.Geelong: J Selwood S John-son M Stokes T Hawkins JBartel J Corey.Umpires: Chris Donlon,Stuart Wenn, Jordan Bannis-ter.Venue: Gabba.

ASH McGrath celebrated his200th senior AFL match withthe ultimate football fantasy –kicking a goal after the full-time siren to hand Brisbane afive-point win over Geelong atthe Gabba yesterday.

McGrath, 30, marked withno time left on the clock andcalmly slotted the set shotfrom 50m to complete a stun-ning Lions comeback andspark wild celebrations.

Brisbane trailed by 52points late in the third quar-ter but surged back into thecontest with an eight-goal lastterm for one of the biggest up-

sets of the 2013 season. TheLions seemed dead andburied. Not to mention hope-lessly outclassed. But Bris-bane fought back to recordone of the best victories seenin recent club history.

Simon Black had 33 dis-posals in his 320th seniormatch while Daniel Rich wasalso influential for the homeside with 25 telling disposals.

Dayne Zorko and BrentMoloney were also primemovers in the stunning come-back. It was Geelong’s secondloss of the year and the Catswere made to pay for playingin fits and spurts.

Coming off the bye whenCats players spread far and

wide around Australia andoverseas, Geelong swungfrom devastating to diaboli-cal. Jimmy Bartel, Joel Sel-wood, Steve Johnson andMatthew Stokes all had 31possessions for the Cats whileTom Hawkins booted threegoals for Geelong.

But it counted for little asthe Cats had no answer toBrisbane’s final-quartersurge. Hawkins put the Catsin front by one point in thedying seconds but Brisbanewere able to move the Sherrinthe length of the Gabba to findMcGrath – a 2003 premiershipplayer – who showed thepoise of a 200-gamer to stealthe four premiership points.

Geelong threatened to tearthe game wide open from thecentre bounce and dominatedthe opening exchanges to es-tablish a 13-point leadthrough goals to Hawkins andAndrew Mackie.

A fierce Steve Johnsonbump on Pearce Hanleyshowed the Cats had come toplay for a while at least. John-son could come under thescrutiny of the match reviewpanel after appearing to makecontact with Hanley’s head.He did not jump into Hanleyand his arm was tucked closeto his body but the head con-tact will ensure the incidentgoes under the microscope.

Brisbane did not get the

ball inside their attackinghalf for the first five minutesbut worked their way into thematch. The Lions then kickedthe next three goals withJordan Lisle, McGrath andRich booting majors.

The Cats wasted a host ofscoring opportunitiesthrough poor disposal andpoor decision-making whenthey had the Lions on toastbut the visitors kicked intogear with Allen Christensenadding two quickfire goals togive the Cats a 13-point bufferat the main break.

The sides went goal-for-goalearly in the second term butjust like the first quarter,Geelong pulled further away

from the home side the longerthe term went. A magicalSteven Motlop goal from 50mout, hard against the bound-ary line, reinforced that theCats had too many weaponsfor the Lions. The Cats led by27 points at the main breakwith the four premiershippoints at their mercy. Bris-bane were still in the contestbut only because Geelongwere yet to put the pedal allthe way to the floor.

Another Motlop gem andgoals to Hawkins, Johnsonand James Podsiadly saw theCats stamp their authority onthe match in a scrappy thirdterm. The Cats got out to acommanding 52-point lead.