by John Mikkelsen, ©2026
(Sep. 28, 2026) — Just when I needed a break from depressing politics dominating the air waves and print media, the see-sawing battle of the titans in the AFL Grand Final provided the antidote, with the Brisbane Lions pulling off a dramatic three-peat Premiership over the Fremantle Dockers.
When it had seemed the Dockers held a winning lead over the Lions, the fans were dancing and cheering in the street over in West Australia, and the celebratory tune Wharfies Time started booming over the huge crowd at the MCG.
With only 4 minutes and 18 seconds remaining in the final quarter, Patrick Voss had just kicked a goal to put the Fremantle Dockers up by 17 points.
Fremantle triggered their signature celebration featuring the slow tolling introduction to AC/DC’s Hells Bells and visuals on the big screen. Anyone who had backed the Dockers on a sports betting app probably would have been counting the payout in their heads.
Big mistake. Instead of sealing the win for Fremantle, that moment, backed by some inspirational words from coach Chris Fagan, fired up the Lions. Fagan had laid down a direct challenge to his players: “When you hear that, go and win the game.”
So they managed to kick the last four goals of the match in four minutes and snatch their dramatic come-from-behind victory with the final scores 14.12 (96) over the Dockers’ 12.17 (89).
I know that Aussie Rules is a fast moving game, earning the derogatory nickname “aerial ping pong” from fans of other footy codes such as Rugby League or Rugby Union, which can get bogged down in endless scrums. But I didn’t see that sudden reversal coming.
As a Queenslander I was elated for the Lions but sorry for the Dockers who had seemed more in control throughout most of the final quarter.
Them’s the breaks and no doubt the Dockers will lick their wounds, recover and come back fighting for their first ever Premiership some time in the future.
All that said, I must admit I’m not a dyed in the wool fan of any footy code but in this case I do have some skin in the game. Watching the Lions and the Dockers battle it out and hearing the final whistle was like a trip back in my mind’s own version of Dr Who’s Tardis:
The parochial crowd in the grandstand roared encouragement as I took a mark and looked around for a teammate who could swing the schoolboys’ representative Aussie Rules match our way. Or should I just go for the goal… too far …
How the he** did this happen and what was I doing here – a kid from a small bush school playing in a North Queensland rep match against a rival team from Cairns?
I was a “Rover” which was pretty apt seeing my best mate, the Kelpie-cross was also a Rover, but he had four feet which would have been useful for ducking and weaving under the hot northern sun.
Australian Rules has had a long history in Queensland dating back to the 1860’s not long after it first appeared in Melbourne, the traditional home of AFL. The first games were played in Brisbane’s Queens Park, and by the 1880’s it was the colony’s most prominent sports code. But it gradually lost that title to Rugby League.
It was introduced to Townsville in 1955 and schools in the district were invited to participate. My Dad, Garnet (Garnie to his mates), the headmaster at Stuart State School, was never backward in accepting a challenge and a team was soon formed under his tutelage.
He had never played the game himself and all his coaching would have come straight from the code’s rule book, but that didn’t deter him or the 18 kids who put their hands up.
Somehow, that included me. Normally, I’d sooner be off fishing or hunting after school or on weekends, so it’s likely some paternal pressure was applied.
I’ve never been greatly into any organised sport, but I was a pretty good runner. So I was appointed the Stuart Aussie Rules team’s Rover.
A modern football coaching site has this to say: “The rover needs to be an agile and fit player that can collect the ball from the ruck-rover and ruckman. Rovers also follow the ball all over the field and also need to be able to tackle and apply pressure to the other team”.
Fair enough; unlike Rugby League there’s no off-side, and I could be anywhere that the flying “pigskin” took me. Duck, weave, bounce the ball, hand-ball it or kick it, no hard tackles, no game-slowing scrums; take a mark, kick a goal if you can, maybe a behind or two if your aim is slightly off ….
Maybe it was the bush air, but our team did well, advancing in the competition round. I had no idea that there were also “talent scouts” out watching our weekly games and that some of us would be selected in the big, season-ending “representative match.”
And so it came to pass that I was on the field that day. Young “Rover” Mikko was feeling the pressure and the heat after taking a mark.
The big flaw in our game so far was that we were uncoordinated, mainly because we hadn’t really trained together as a team. We were hand-picked and hastily thrown together, apparently with the expectation we would perform as well as we did with our own individual teams each weekend. Any coach should know that’s a sure-fire recipe for failure, but so far we were still within reach of our northern rivals.
I had the ball in my hands, still a long way from the goal posts and I looked around for a friendly face among a sea of strangers. A voice from a Stuart mate off to my left called, “Over here, John!” so I kicked the ball across to him.
But an opposing Cairns player cut in, and the ball was rapidly heading off to the opposing end of the field. Yes, it’s a fast game. (Just as the Dockers!)
And from the sidelines, a voice through a megaphone rang in my ears: “What are you doing, Mikkelsen; you should be kicking towards the goal …”
So much for the selector or coach who hadn’t coached us. His words stung, but as the other Good Rule Book says, “You reap what you sow,” so get over it, mate!
Cairns went on to win, but hey, it’s only a game, right?
As fate would have it, it was my very last game. The following year Garnie was transferred back to Bundaberg and I transferred from first-form at Townsville State High to Bundaberg State High, which seemed a world away.
Aussie Rules was a foreign concept there; nobody had ever heard of AFL greats like the legendary Roy Cazaly, and the mighty Brisbane Lions were still about four decades away from stirring their southern rivals.
But what a great team they have proved to be!
John Mikkelsen is a former editor of three Queensland regional newspapers, columnist, freelance writer and author of the Amazon Books Memoir, Don’t Call Me Nev. (https://www.amazon.com.au/Dont-Call-Nev-John-Mikkelsen/dp/B09S244GP1/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?
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