Chris Fagan sweats on defender’s fitness test, Nick Watson match-up against Hawthorn; Plugger’s breathless first words after preliminary final heroics, Tony Lockett, Sydney Swans history
Updated ,first published
The Brisbane Lions will be without defender Noah Answerth for their preliminary final clash with Hawthorn, but coach Chris Fagan believes the smarts of veteran Ryan Lester could counter the speed of Hawks superstar Nick Watson.
The man known as “the Wizard” has, arguably, become opposition sides’ most challenging match-up during his All-Australian season and finished with two goals, nine score involvements and 447 metres gained in the qualifying final win over Fremantle.
Answerth was unable to prove his fitness at training on Thursday, with the Lions and Hawks both naming unchanged sides.
Fagan warned before selection on Thursday that he wouldn’t name Answerth unless he was absolutely fit to play.
“Ankle injuries are always a bit of a challenge for footballers,” Fagan said on Thursday morning.
“They take more weight on the ankles. He did a bit of training on Tuesday and there is some optimism around him, but I’m not 100 per cent sure and I don’t want to take anyone into a final who isn’t 100 per cent [fit].
“It’s part of our considerations because we don’t want to hang him out to dry by playing him on someone he isn’t equipped to play on because he’s not quite right. It’s a very important decision.”
But Fagan said he had multiple options for Watson, including Lester, who has taken on tall and small forwards throughout the club’s current premiership-winning era.
“Darcy Wilmot has a lot of pace, he can certainly keep up with him,” Fagan said of Watson.
“[Jaspa] Fletcher is another one and even Ryan Lester, he played on [Josh] Rachele last week, who is somewhere near the standard of Watson, and he was able to use his smarts to get the job done.
“By and large, how effective Hawthorn’s forwards [are] is dependent on how easily the ball gets into their forward line and how quickly. The more we can slow it down and cut it off, the more difficult it becomes for them.”
The Hawks and the Lions have won a combined six premierships in the past 20 years and Fagan has had a leading hand in all of them, filling development and head of football roles at Hawthorn between 2008-2016 when they famously won four flags.
Fagan’s Lions coaching tenure started for the 2017 season, embarking on a rebuild that has led to back-to-back premierships in the past two years and could include a third straight if they triumph this season.
Surprisingly, the two clubs have never met in a final, despite their success in recent decades.
“They were at their peak when the Lions were really struggling a few years back,” Fagan said.
“It’s one of those crazy things in sport that has never happened, but it is going to happen this week, so it will be on.”
The Lions have a 7-18 record all-time in away games against the Hawks, although they have only met at the MCG three times since 2020.
The Hawks won match-ups in 2020 and 2023 at the MCG while the Lions won by 33 points in their last meeting at the MCG in March last year.
Fagan has refused to show his players video of their 67-point win over the Hawks at the Gabba in round 22 as he believes the stakes for that match were far different to now.
“I think they had an off game – you can’t read into that performance from a few weeks ago,” Fagan said.
“It will be entirely different, and we aren’t even showing any vision from that game. It will be a different game.
“We are getting ready for the hardest game we will play this year.“
– Roy Ward
‘I can’t breathe’: Plugger’s first words after preliminary final heroics
Danny Russell
Goal-kicking leviathan Tony Lockett was never one to mince his words, and it was no different after his famous after-the-siren behind in the 1996 preliminary final at the SCG.
Lockett’s 55-metre drop-punt from the edge of the centre square handed the Swans a one-point victory over Essendon and sent them through to the grand final for the first time in 51 years, but the no-nonsense full-forward was not happy about being buried at the bottom of a celebratory pile-on.
“Get the f— off me, I can’t breathe,” he bellowed at his ecstatic teammates.
The aftermath of the thrilling victory was recalled this week, 30 years after the event, by the man who delivered the ball into a leading Lockett’s hands, teammate Wade Chapman.
Lockett marked Chapman’s pass on his chest at centre half-forward with 22 seconds left on the clock. The scores were level – 10.9 (69) apiece – following a Daryn Cresswell mark and goal little more than a minute earlier.
“It was probably one of my better kicks in my career,” Chapman said. “There were two Essendon players on the outside of Tony, and it could have gone back the other way had it been a turnover.”
Chapman, now 50, stood behind the full-forward as the siren sounded, and he watched as teammate Troy Luff spoke to Lockett about any score being enough.
“I knew he had come back from a groin injury, and he was still, you know, a fair distance out. But I was confident that he was able to score,” Chapman said.
“When it left his boot, and it was going in the air, I was confident it would make the distance. And then it was mayhem.
“I remember Tony was on his back, and there were a couple of guys on him, and then I was on those guys, and then there were a couple of other guys on me. All I remember was Tony saying, the expletives of, ‘Get the F-off me, I can’t breathe’.”
Chapman, who was recently appointed coach of North Shore Football Club in the Geelong Football Netball League, left Sydney in 1999 after 51 games and has never seen Lockett since.
The Australian Football Hall of Fame Legend declined to comment for this story when contacted by The Age, saying he was “very busy” as part of a five-word text.
“I have very fond memories of that night, but also playing with guys like Tony Lockett, Paul Roos, Paul Kelly and Daryn Cresswell. Lockett is the greatest goal kicker of all-time,” Chapman said.
“So if I am only remembered for that one kick [to Lockett], I am OK with that.”
The Swans went on to lose the 1996 grand final to North Melbourne by 43 points.
“I still look back and think we played our grand final that night [of the preliminary final],” Chapman said.
“After we lost that game [to North Melbourne], I remember thinking, as a 20-year-old, ‘There is always next year’. But there was never another grand final for myself.”
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Roy Ward is a sports writer, live blogger and breaking news journalist. He’s been writing for The Age since 2010.Connect via X or email.