Thirty-Two Years. One Afternoon in Melbourne. Let's Go.

Brisbane want a threepeat. We want one. Just one. A solitary rain-soaked premiership cup to carry back across the Nullarbor. The Lions have history, momentum and a former co-captain the Appeal Board has declared too nice to suspend. We have the minor premiership, the comeback of the season, Wharfie Time in Melbourne and an army of purple fanatics who have spent their life savings on diesel at Eucla. Bring it.

FREMANTLE (1st, 19-4, 137.2%): Minor premiers. Lost the qualifying final to Hawthorn, beat Geelong in the semi in front of a club-record 59,725 at Optus, then came from 28 points down in the third quarter at the SCG to beat Sydney by 12. Second Grand Final in 32 seasons. Still looking for flag number one.

BRISBANE: Back-to-back premiers (2024, 2025), fourth straight Grand Final, chasing the first threepeat since Hawthorn's 2013–15 run. Beat Adelaide by 53 in the semi, then held off Hawthorn 20.11 (131) to 19.8 (122) in the prelim in front of 97,835 at the MCG.

THE PILGRIMAGE

Somewhere on the Eyre Highway right now, a Falcon with a purple flag gaffer-taped to the aerial is doing 110 through the Nullarbor with a car full of people who have not slept since the siren at the SCG. It is roughly 3,300 kilometres from Perth to the MCG by road. Diesel at Eucla has been going for $3.22 a litre. Return airfares have been quoted at up to $6,000, which is the kind of number that has people seriously pricing up Perth–Melbourne via Singapore, Dubai, or the moon.

Qantas has added 13 extra flights. Virgin has added 4,000 seats. Police have beefed up patrols on the 710-kilometre Norseman-to-Eucla stretch, and the Balladonia Roadhouse has put up welcome signs, which is the most hospitality Western Australians have received from anywhere east of Kalgoorlie since Federation. The Great Northern Hotel in Carlton North has become the unofficial Fremantle embassy. Melbourne Airport is expecting 114,000 passengers on Saturday, and judging by the airfares, about 40 of them are paying less than a used car.

There are Wheatbelt families making this trip who made it in 2013 and came home with nothing but a sunburn and a grudge. There are kids in the back seat who weren't born when Hawthorn broke our hearts. Every one of them is driving, flying, begging and borrowing their way to the 'G because this club has never been here with a better chance. Purple Army: you are the story.

THREEPEAT v NEVER-PEAT

Let's get the Lions' credentials out of the way, because a match preview is supposed to be fair, and I am being paid nothing to be fair. Brisbane are chasing their third flag in a row, something only a handful of sides have done in the VFL/AFL era and that the Lions themselves pulled off in 2001–03. They beat Sydney in the 2024 decider and Geelong by 47 in 2025. This is their fourth straight Grand Final. They've won eight of their last ten trips to the MCG. They are, annoyingly, very good.

And their scoring this September has been genuinely frightening. They put 131 on Hawthorn in the preliminary final, which included twelve goals between the two sides in the last quarter alone. They beat Adelaide by 53. Kai Lohmann kicked five in the prelim, one of them after the siren, apparently just to hear 'Daddy Cool' one more time. When this Brisbane side gets going, it doesn't so much score as seize the means of production.

But here's the thing about the prelim that nobody north of the Tweed wants to talk about. Brisbane led Hawthorn by 28 points in the final quarter and nearly lost it. They needed Jarman Impey to be pinged for holding the ball and a Hugh McCluggage set shot in the final seconds to get home. The mighty Lions, three-time defending… sorry, two-time defending premiers, were one dodgy free kick from watching someone else's Grand Final on the couch. They can be run down. Just ask Sydney what it feels like to be run down.

THE GREAT ESCAPE OF LACHIE NEALE

Now. Lachie. Our Lachie. Or, more precisely, our former Lachie: 135 games in purple from 2012 to 2018, a 20-year-old in the 2013 Grand Final, Doig Medals in 2016 and 2018, then traded to Brisbane for two first-round picks, two Brownlows and a pair of premierships as captain. We will never not be proud of him. We will also never not be slightly sore about it.

Last Saturday he gave Jack Ginnivan a little gut rub and was offered a one-match ban for striking. Lachie described it as 'a bump, a body check', in the same way I describe a second pie at three-quarter time as 'a snack'. On Tuesday, the Tribunal upheld the ban. Brisbane went straight to the Appeal Board, and on Thursday night the three wise men — chairman Richard Loveridge, Steven Jurica and Wayne Henwood — found that the Tribunal had 'erred' by not giving enough weight to his record of 320 games without a suspension. Exceptional and compelling circumstances. $10,000 fine. See you Saturday.

Lachie buried his head in his hands and said 'thank you, Mr Chairman', which, to be fair, is exactly what any of us would have said. Somewhere in the AFL's archives, Barry Hall (2005) and Trent Cotchin (2017) nodded knowingly. Meanwhile, Anthony Rocca remains the last player to miss a Grand Final through a preliminary-final suspension, back in 2003, and presumably wishes he'd been more polite for his first 300 games.

So the precedent is now set: be a lovely bloke for long enough and you get one free swing. Ginnivan is entitled to feel aggrieved. Hawthorn are entitled to feel aggrieved. We, on the other hand, are delighted. Nobody wants to beat a Brisbane side missing its dual Brownlow medallist and hear about it for 30 years. We want the full Lions. We want the best Lachie Neale. And then we want Caleb Serong standing on him for two hours. Lachie is 33, he's out of contract, and if this turns out to be his last game in maroon, there are worse ways to finish than losing a Grand Final to the club that drafted you. Consider it a homecoming present.

WHARFIE TIME: ONE BULLET IN THE CHAMBER

It's official. For the first time outside Perth, the AFL has approved Wharfie Time for the Grand Final. The conditions are strict: it can be played once, and only if the game is close in the last quarter. Hells Bells. The video. The whole catastrophe. AFL chief Andrew Dillon put it best: 'If we do get to that stage of the game, it will mean we've got a cracking game because it will be very close in the last quarter.'

Think about that for a moment. The AFL has built a rule that says, essentially, 'Fremantle may only use their superpower if they are in a position to win.' That is the single most Fremantle sentence ever written. We've used it to beat Hawthorn in Round 9 and to finish off Geelong in the semi. At the SCG we didn't have it, and we came home anyway. On Saturday, Wharfie Time gets one shot, and I would like the person in charge of the MCG sound desk to know that every Western Australian in the ground will be watching the clock and watching their hands.

THE ELEPHANT IN THE PURPLE ROOM

I'm not going to pretend this Fremantle side has been a machine this month. AFL.com.au pointed out this week that the minor premiers have outscored their opponents in just three of their last 12 quarters. Three. We were well beaten by Hawthorn in the qualifying final, got outpointed for long stretches by Geelong, and were 28 points down in the third quarter in Sydney before deciding, collectively, that enough was enough.

On paper that is a worry. In practice it's the single most Fremantle statistic imaginable, and I've decided to embrace it. We don't need four good quarters. We have never needed four good quarters. We need one devastating burst, and this group has become the best in the competition at producing it on demand. Five unanswered goals to finish the prelim. A Hayden Young 50-metre boundary goal on the three-quarter-time siren that will be on every purple rumpus room wall by Christmas. A Mason Cox pack mark and set shot to hit the front, the second time the big fella has done something ridiculous in a preliminary final in his career.

Now Brisbane are not Sydney without six of their best. If we give the Lions a 28-point head start, they know how to hold it, mostly. Their prelim showed they can bleed goals late, but it also showed they can find the winner. The ideal plan for Saturday is that the Fremantle burst comes early and often. The realistic plan is that it comes at all.

HEAD TO HEAD: THE MEMORY OF THE GABBA

Remarkably, this is the first time Fremantle and Brisbane have ever met in a final. Across the last five meetings it's Brisbane 3, Fremantle 2, and the one that stings is Round 23 last year, when the Lions beat us by 57 (44 to 101) and made us look like a Sunday league side.

But the one that matters is Round 12 this year at the Gabba: Fremantle 15.13 (103) defeated Brisbane 10.18 (78), and at one stage we led by 51. Yes, the Lions were 6-6 at the time and on a three-game losing streak. Yes, they won the inside-50 count and had as many scoring shots as us, and missed a lot of them. That's the thing about 10.18: it's not bad luck when you do it at home, in front of your own people. It's a character trait. If it rains on Saturday, and it will, accurate kicking will be worth its weight in premiership medallions.

THE WEATHER: WET, COLD AND PERFECT

The Bureau's Dean Narramore reckons Saturday could be the wettest Grand Final since 2011 (Geelong 18.11 (119) beat Collingwood 12.9 (81)), with up to 15mm of rain, showers arriving mid-to-late morning and hanging around all day, and a top of 16 or 17. Weatherzone has it colder still: 15°C, feeling more like 10 in the southerlies. Kylie Minogue will be doing the pre-game in conditions better suited to a lighthouse keeper.

Is that good for Freo? The honest answer is that the last time we played in the wet was the qualifying final, and we lost to Hawthorn 5.10 (40) to 10.12 (72). The one-eyed answer is that a wet Grand Final is a contested Grand Final, and a contested Grand Final is won by the side with the best ruckman and the hardest inside midfield. That's us. Brisbane's slick, fast ball movement — the thing that put 131 on Hawthorn — is at its most dangerous on a dry deck under a clear sky. Saturday will not be that. Leave the fancy stuff in Queensland, fellas. Bring gumboots.

TEAM NEWS

Both sides unchanged, which means heartbreak for Brennan Cox, a Grand Final emergency again after a Round 24 calf cost him his spot. If there's any justice in the universe, and after Thursday night's Appeal Board I'm no longer certain there is, he gets a medal anyway. Jaeger O'Meara and Chris Scerri join him as emergencies, ready if anyone pulls up sore in the warm-up.

WHERE IT WILL BE WON

• The ruck: Luke Jackson. The boy who grew up barracking for Freo has already played in one Grand Final (Melbourne, 2021) and won it. Against Geelong he had 25 touches, 35 hitouts and two goals. In the wet, every stoppage is a coin toss, and Jackson is a man who owns the coin. If he dominates, we win. Simple as that.

• The engine room: Serong and Brayshaw v Neale and McCluggage. Brisbane's midfield is their pedigree. Ours is our heartbeat. Caleb Serong on Neale is the headline act, and with Andrew Brayshaw and Shai Bolton around the ball, we have the depth to make the Lions' ball-users earn every inch. McCluggage kicked the winner last week. Make him kick it again under pressure, in the rain, and we'll see.

• The last line: Pearce, McVee and Clark v Lohmann, Cameron and Rayner. This is the match-up that decides it. Brisbane's small and mid-sized forwards are lethal on the ground. Alex Pearce, only the second Fremantle captain to lead the team out on Grand Final day, must marshal a backline that keeps the ball in front and doesn't give Charlie Cameron room to do the thing he does. If we hear 'Country Roads' more than twice, we are in trouble. If we hear 'Sweet Caroline' at all, I'm leaving at three-quarter time. (I'm not. I'd never.)

• Up forward: Treacy, Amiss and Voss. Jye Amiss is as calm a set shot as we've got, Pat Voss closed out Geelong, and Josh Treacy loves a scrap. In the rain, the forward who can take a contested mark and kick straight is worth three who can't. We've got three who can.

• The X-factor: Hayden Young. He's played only 26 of our last 50 games and has averaged about two-thirds game time this September. None of that matters. In the last quarter at the SCG he had eight touches and three score involvements after that siren goal. Manage his minutes, then unleash him when the Lions are tired. He's the kind of player who polls votes in the Norm Smith voting.

A QUICK WORD ON MY FORM

In the interests of full transparency, which is not a phrase normally associated with this column, here's how I've gone this September: QF – Freo by 23 (we lost by 32), SF – Freo by 12 (won by 14), PF – Freo by 8 (won by 12).

That's two from three, getting closer every week, and a margin of error that has gone from 55 points to 2 and 4. On current trajectory I'll be spot on by Saturday. The professionals at AFL.com.au have Brisbane by 11. They are wrong, and I'll explain why below.

THE VERDICT

Thirty-two years. One afternoon. One quarter at a time.

Brisbane will kick a score. They always do. They'll have their maroon patch and at some stage in the third quarter Charlie Cameron will kick one from the pocket, the Lions end of the ground will bellow John Denver, and every one of us will stare at the rain and wonder why we bothered driving through Balladonia.

And then Freo will do what Freo does. Nobody in this competition trails like us and nobody comes home like us. We came from 28 points down at the SCG with five unanswered goals and no Wharfie Time to help. On Saturday we'll have Wharfie Time, 3,000-odd kilometres of road trip in our legs, and a rain-soaked contest that favours the side with the better ruckman and the harder midfield. That's us.

Jackson wins the ruck. Serong and Brayshaw grind the Lions' ball-users into the Punt Road mud. Pearce holds the line. Treacy kicks five. Hayden Young does something in the last quarter that gets shown on a loop for the next forty years. And somewhere around the 25-minute mark of the final term, Hells Bells rings out across the MCG for the first time in its history, and a ground that has seen everything since 1853 finally learns what Walyalup sounds like.

FREMANTLE BY 13

One for every year since the last time. Norm Smith: Josh Treacy.

Purple Army, this is it. Whether you're in the Great Northern, a pub in Fremantle, a roadhouse on the Eyre, or level 3 of the MCG in a poncho you bought from a bloke outside Jolimont: sing loud, sing early and never stop. For 2013. For everyone who drove. For everyone who didn't live to see it. Freo to win.