The history of non-Victorian AFL grand finals — Port Adelaide’s spiteful win over Brisbane and a pair of epics between Sydney and West Coast

Brisbane ensured the end of an 18-year drought when it prevailed over Geelong to reach the grand final last weekend.

Saturday’s AFL grand final between the Lions and Sydney Swans will be the first time since 2006 where the premiership has been decided between two teams based outside Victoria. 

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Since the AFL officially became a national competition in 1990, a non-Victorian team has won the premiership 12 times. However, this year’s decider will be just the fourth time where two non-Victorian teams have battled each other for the cup. 

Ironically, the previous three teams have all featured either the Swans or the Lions. 

Here is a look at the history of the AFL’s previous non-Victorian grand final match-ups. 

2004: Lions claim sabotage as Port ends hopes of four straight flags 

At the end of 1996, the Brisbane Bears merged with Fitzroy to form the Brisbane Lions for the start of the 1997 season, the same season the AFL welcomed a second South Australian team, Port Adelaide, into the competition.

In the seven years that followed, both Brisbane and Port Adelaide rose to become two of the league’s undisputed heavyweights.

The Lions incredibly went from a wooden spoon in 1998 to a preliminary final the following year, before finally breaking through with the first of three consecutive premierships in 2001. 

Port first made the finals in 2001, and by the time 2004 had rolled around, the Power had gained the reputation of being finals underperformers.

The Power came into the finals as the minor premier for the third year running, while the Lions had finished second, one game behind Port. Both teams faced the same opponents, Geelong and St Kilda, in inverse order to reach the grand final. 

Brisbane came into the grand final looking to become just the second club to win four premierships in a row after Collingwood had done so between 1927 and 1930, but had been forced to chart a much tougher path en-route to the decider.

Despite beating the Saints by 80 points in the qualifying final, the Lions were forced to play their home preliminary final at the MCG against the Cats due to a contract the AFL had which stated that at least one preliminary final had to be played at the ground. As Brisbane finished behind Port during the home and away season, it was decided the Lions would face the Cats away from the Gabba, much to the chagrin of the three-time reigning premiers.

Brisbane and Port had built up a legitimate rivalry as the AFL’s two big non-Victorian forces and the bad blood culminated in one of the more spiteful first quarters in recent grand final history.

Things kicked off before the first bounce as Port defender Damien Hardwick went at Brisbane star Nigel Lappin and was immediately surrounded by five of Lappin’s teammates as Josh Carr and Kane Cornes also came in to remonstrate. 

Carr would be central to the next spotfire in the first quarter, when he found himself in a grapple with Brisbane’s Jonathan Brown, who unleashed with a left hook to Carr’s face. 

Both fights did not compare to the main event between Alastair Lynch and Darryl Wakelin in Brisbane’s forward line later on in the quarter. 

Lynch, frustrated after tearing his quadricep muscle earlier in the quarter, unleashed on Wakelin with a barrage of wild punches that luckily did not make contact with the Port defender. He was later handed a 10-week suspension and a $15,000 fine, but did not have to serve the suspension as he retired after the grand final. 

A tightly-contested first half saw Brisbane take a one-point lead into the main break, before Port exploded in the second half. 

Port Adelaide kicked six goals in the space of 15  minutes on either side of the three-quarter time siren to split the game open, with Gavin Wanganeen wreaking havoc in the Power forward line with a four-goal haul.

Wanganeen was narrowly beaten to the Norm Smith Medal despite his heroics, with that honour going to teammate Byron Pickett, who kicked three goals from the midfield.

Port’s win resulted in one of the most iconic celebrations from a premiership-winning coach as Mark Williams famously tugged at his tie, referencing his club’s reputation of being finals chokers. 

Williams also famously yelled “Allan Scott — you were wrong!” on the grand final dais after the game, a shot at major Port sponsor Scott, who had voiced his belief that the club could not win a premiership under Williams’s guidance earlier in 2004.

Brisbane coach Leigh Matthews was irate following the loss, and took aim at the AFL for forcing the Lions to play a home preliminary final at the MCG. Not only did venue of the preliminary final anger Matthews, but the timing, given the match against Geelong was played on Saturday night instead of Saturday afternoon. Port had played its prelim exactly 24 hours earlier. 

Matthews later revealed that he felt like “punching” then-AFL boss Andrew Demetriou immediately after the grand final. 

“They went to shake hands and offer their condolences, but my prickly mood was not into conciliation; it was into shooting the messenger,” he wrote in his book titled Accept The Challenge.

“In my mind the AFL denied us our best shot at winning an historic fourth consecutive premiership and here were the league’s two main office bearers and decision makers having the temerity to act friendly when clearly they’d been the enemy.

“We had a chance to do something unbelievably special and external forces intervened to make our task harder.

“Do I feel we were dudded by the schedule, well, yes, I do.”

The loss to Port Adelaide ended a magical era for Brisbane under Matthews. The Lions failed to make the finals again under the legendary coach before he stepped aside following the 2008 season. Port would make another grand final under Williams in 2007, before his resignation midway through the 2010 season.

2005: Leo Barry’s heroics help Swans end 72-year drought

After dominating the start of the decade, both Port and Brisbane fell away alarmingly the year after their grand final meeting. The Power scraped into the finals in eighth spot after winning just 11 games, while the Lions finished 11th in 2005. 

The pair’s demise gave way to a fresh new non-Victorian rivalry between West Coast and Sydney, who finished the home and away season in second and third, respectively. 

West Coast had gradually risen from easybeats of the competition to becoming a powerhouse on the back of its phenomenal midfield trio of Ben Cousins, Chris Judd and Daniel Kerr, who were flanked by arguably the generation’s greatest ruckman, Dean Cox. 

The two teams had met in the first week of the Eagles claiming a four-point win at Subiaco in the qualifying final to advance to a preliminary final.

Sydney came within seconds of being eliminated in straight sets the following week before Nick Davis kicked four final quarter goals to rescue his side. 

The Swans staged another comeback the following week, overturning a seven-point three-quarter time deficit to overrun St Kilda in the preliminary final, while the Eagles accounted for reigning premiers Adelaide in the other prelim. 

Sydney’s preliminary final win was shrouded by controversy after skipper Barry Hall was allowed to play in the grand final despite punching St Kilda defender Matt Maguire in the stomach behind play.

Hall was reported for the incident, but avoided a suspension after his legal team successfully argued that the incident occurred because he was trying to free himself to make a lead.

“I had a good QC,” he said when being inducted into the AFL Hall of Fame in 2017. “I hit a guy. I shouldn’t have played the grand final. The rules were “in play, out of play”. I was clearly out of the game. I got away with one.”

Cousins, the Eagles captain, had vaulted himself into the upper echelon of midfielders in the competition after winning the Brownlow Medal following a season where he’d averaged 25.5 disposals per game and kicked 24 goals. He was the second consecutive Eagle to win the Brownlow after Judd had done it the year before. 

West Coast, playing in its first finals series since winning the premiership in 1994, started nervously. After trailing by just two points at quarter-time, the Eagles were held goalless in the second term as the Swans kicked three majors of their own to take a 20-point lead into the main break.

The Eagles were hampered by Kerr suffering a serious ankle injury in the first quarter, one which limited his effectiveness for the remainder of the match. 

The match came to life in the third quarter as the Eagles held the Swans goalless while kicking three goals of their own to trim the margin to two points at the final change, with lesser known players such as Adam Hunter and Ash Hansen having a major impact up forward. 

West Coast hit the front for the first time since the early stages of the match courtesy of a Cousins goal after he’d intercepted a Luke Ablett kick across the goal face deep in the Eagles’ attacking 50. 

Another goal to Hunter put the Eagles up by 10 points in what had become a low-scoring slugfest, but the Swans weren’t done with yet. 

Goals to Barry Hall and Amon Buchanan gave the Swans back the lead heading into the final five minutes of the match as the Eagles threw the kitchen sink. 

The clock had just ticked past the 32-minute mark in the final quarter when Sydney’s Tadhg Kennelly rushed a behind. Shortly after the kick-in that followed, Swans defender Leo Barry sent a long kick towards the wing, only for it to be intercepted by Cox. 

Cox, realising time was running out, immediately played on and sent the ball back where it came from with a long left-footed drop punt before a moment that has since gone down in Swans folklore occurred.

Nine players, six from Sydney and three from West Coast, congregated under the ball hoping to take the mark from Cox’s kick inside 50, one of them emerged with the ball: Barry. 

“One last roll of the dice for the Eagles … Leo Barry, you star!” yelled lead commentator Stephen Quartermain on Channel 10’s coverage as Barry got to his feet after the mark.

Barely seconds passed before the final siren sounded, sparking pandemonium around the MCG. 

“The longest premiership drought in football history is over! For the first time in 72 years, the Swans are champions of the AFL,” Quartermain said at the final siren. 

The match immediately went down as one of the greatest in league history and had a whopping 3.386 million TV viewers in Australia, a grand final record since the current ratings system had been introduced in 2001. 

Judd was named the Norm Smith medallist despite being on the losing side. He became the fourth player in league history to be named the best on ground in a losing effort, joining Maurice Rioli (1982), Gary Ablett Sr (1989) and Nathan Buckley (2002).

2006: Eagles emerge victors as sequel against Swans outdoes the original

West Coast and Sydney were both among the top teams again in 2006, with the Eagles emerging as minor premiers after winning 17 games during the home and away season.

Judd was named the Eagles captain for the start of the 2006 season after Cousins was forced to resign following an off-field incident where he’d fled a booze bus.

The Swans finished fourth after winning 14 games and therefore faced the Eagles in a grand final rematch in the first week of the finals. 

By this point in the Swans-Eagles rivalry, the two teams had become accustomed to playing thrillers against each other. The only meeting between the two during the 2006 home and away season resulted in a two-point win for West Coast at Subiaco.

Sydney bit back in the qualifying final, with a late goal for Michael O’Loughlin giving the reigning premiers a one-point win. O’Loughlin pounced on a loose ball to run into an open goal and famously got right in the face of the Eagles’ cheer squad sitting behind the goals.

West Coast dusted itself off the following week by thrashing the Bulldogs at home before prevailing over Adelaide in a courageous preliminary final win at Football Park. Sydney advanced to the grand final after a comfortable win over Fremantle in its own preliminary final, setting up the ultimate rematch.

After two Eagles had won the Brownlow Medal in the previous two seasons, this time it was Sydney with the fanfare during the week, as Adam Goodes won the prestigious medal for the second time in the space of four seasons. 

There were no nerves of the previous season for the Eagles this time around to start the grand final, as Cousins and Judd hit the scoreboard early to see West Coast out to an early 17-point lead.

The second grand final between the two teams was a more free-flowing contest than the first, with West Coast leading by as many as 29 points late in the second quarter. West Coast’s half-time score of 8.7 (55) eclipsed the full time score of 7.12 (54) from 12 months prior. 

Sydney lifted its game in the third quarter, but the Eagles seemed to answer, holding a 27-point lead late in the quarter, before the Swans closed strong to trim the lead to just 11 points at the final change. That lead was trimmed to just five points 15 seconds into the final term as Goodes struck on the run from just inside the 50m arc.

West Coast clung to a one-point lead entering the final five minutes, setting up another thrilling finish similar to the previous year. 

As the Eagles surged forward, Swans star Ryan O’Keefe received a handball 45m out from West Coast’s goal and attempted a clearing kick which was smothered by Daniel Chick, who pounced on the loose ball and handed off to Hunter for the would-be premiers’ final goal of the match.

A couple of minutes later, Nick Malceski received a handball from Buchanan and snapped through a goal to trim West Coast’s lead to just one point again. 

The Swans threw the kitchen sink at West Coast over the next few minutes, but the Eagles’ defence held strong, with the siren sounding seconds after a boundary throw-in 50m out from Sydney’s goal, sparking wild celebrations among Eagles players.

“Who would’ve thought the sequel would be just as good as the original,” Anthony Hudson said on commentary for Channel 10, in what has since become one of the most iconic lines of grand final commentary. 

West Coast wingman Andrew Embley won the Norm Smith Medal after finishing with 26 disposals and kicking two goals. 

The match ended up being the fifth consecutive clash between West Coast and Sydney to be decided by less than a goal, continuing an incredible rivalry between the two clubs. 

Sydney would never return to the grand final stage in head coach Paul Roos’ tenure, recording finishes of seventh, sixth, 12th and fifth before he stepped down at the end of 2010.

The Eagles enjoyed another strong season in 2007, finishing third on the ladder despite constant off-field controversy surrounding Cousins. 

West Coast suspended its former captain indefinitely in March 2007 after he’d missed two training sessions before it was later revealed that he had a substance abuse problem. 

Cousins embarked on a four-week rehabilitation stint in Malibu, California before eventually making his return to West Coast’s line-up for the Round 16 clash against the Swans, where he tallied 38 disposals. 

The Eagles lost to Port Adelaide by three points in a thrilling qualifying final, where Cousins tore his hamstring, and then went out in an extra time thriller the following week against Collingwood.

The 2007 season would be the last in Eagles colours for both Cousins and Judd. Cousins was sacked by the Eagles after being arrested for drug possession in October 2007, while Judd was traded to Carlton in the same month after requesting a trade to a Victorian club. 

Sydney won the premiership again in 2012, upsetting Hawthorn in the decider, with Jude Bolton, Goodes, O’Keefe and Lewis Roberts-Thomson becoming two-time premiership players.

The Swans and the Eagles (2018) are the only two non-Victorian clubs to win AFL premierships since the 2006 grand final.