Is 2023 the year Brisbane takes their AFL premiership chance, or is it mission impossible?

After beating Collingwood on Friday night, it’s worth asking whether Brisbane can finally win the premiership to cap what has been a great run.

Since 2019 the Lions have missed the top 4 only once and are currently sitting in second on the ladder. A win against the Saints will lock them into second again.

Since 2020, however, I have discounted Brisbane as a premiership chance. That they didn’t even play in the 2020 Grand Final, despite the myriad advantages that they had that year, is the biggest missed opportunity since Chris Nolan refusing to give Emily Blunt anything do except fumble around with flasks in Oppenheimer.

Since then, I’ve discounted them as a Mission: Impossible football team. Unserious, but fun to watch.

Part of me wonders whether their win over a horribly out of form and undermanned Collingwood team is just their version of Tom Cruise riding his motorbike off the cliff in the latest Mission: Impossible movie – cool to watch, but unsubstantial and nonsensical in context.

Or is it the one that started it all? Their Matthew McConaughey in The Wolf of Wall Street moment. The moment that, in hindsight, we really should have started taking them seriously.

(Photo by Chris Hyde/AFL Photos/via Getty Images)

The bookies have them currently equal favourite for the flag. Despite that, my suspicion is the former will prove true again.

Brisbane’s formula this year is the formula that they had last year, and the year before that, and the one before that too. They dominate clearances – since 2019 they have never been worse than third in the AFL for clearances.

From there, they kick a lot of goals. Watching them go forward is like reaching your hand into a big bag of Allen’s lollies that have all been combined. You could get a snake, you could get a dinosaur, you could even get one of those racist brown lollies that got renamed because you can’t have racist confectionary anymore.

Whatever you get, it will be good. It could be Charlie Cameron, Cam Rayner, Zac Bailey or Joe Daniher. If the moon is right and the winds are in his favour, you might even get Eric Hipwood.

They’re versatile and dangerous up forward, unsurprisingly generating the third most shots and goals in footy. They are also the second most efficient team in the game in terms of goals per inside 50 with the third best point differential.

Even defensively they have improved markedly from average numbers in 2022, giving up the third fewest shots in football behind Carlton and Melbourne.

There’s no doubt that Brisbane is a good team. But I’m not convinced they’re a premiership team.

Premiership indicators, while they look backwards, are a good way to see how to win premierships over the last 11 years.

The premiership indicators are 19 separate key statistical categories. 9 out of the last 11 premiers ranked in the top 6 in the AFL in at least 14 of the 19 categories.

I will note, given that this is a Brisbane article, there is not a single clearance statistic in the premiership indicators.

This year, only two teams are in the top 6 in at least 14 of the categories: Melbourne and Collingwood. Brisbane is top 6 in only 11, allowing too scores per inside 50, too many rebound 50s per opposition inside 50 and forcing too few clangers among other things.

Those numbers show in the eye test. Brisbane simply cannot rely on their defence or their pressure when the chips are down. They are too frail.

In the Pies game you felt that. When Collingwood kicked 4 goals in what felt like 15 seconds, Brisbane showed no ability to slow the game down. They were like General Custer. They fought fire with fire and kick 2 in 2 minutes, from winning clearances.

They go back to their one wood over and over.

They can only play one way, but don’t seem to care about it. They’re a bit like Ving Rhames in the more recent Mission: Impossible films. They’re just going to wear hats and sit down. It’s what they do, and they won’t change for anybody.

They too care so little about pressure and turnover, as opposed to clearance, that they actually doubled down on their dubiously useful strength in the offseason by adding Josh Dunkley. Dunkley is a good player, no doubt, but he is another grunt and clearance player in a team replete with midfield grunt.

Charlie Cameron. (Photo by Daniel Pockett/Getty Images)

Adding him to Brisbane is a bit like adding Paul Giamatti to basically anything. Paul Giamatti makes everything better, but he can’t make anything great.

I did year 9 maths so I am aware that correlation does not equal causation, but the numbers are compelling especially when combined with the eye test.

I also wonder about a forward line built around a small forward. I love Charlie Cameron and he is obviously the alpha in that forward line, having kicked the 6th most goals in the AFL since round 1 in 2022.

But who was the last premier to win without an alpha key forward? Melbourne. But the Dees in 2021 were top 6 in 18/19 premiership standards (only missing opposition bounces). Only Geelong in 2022 were better across all the premiership metrics by mean. They were dominant.

Comparing them to Brisbane would be like comparing Succession to The White Lotus. Both good, but there’s levels in this game.

We have to go back further, all the way to the 2016 Bulldogs. But even the Bulldogs of that year had Tom Boyd turn into Wayne Carey reincarnate.

It is hard to win premierships built around small forwards. It’s especially hard when you’re excellent at the wrong things and just average at the right things.

It’s even harder when you can’t win where the Grand Final is played. Since 2013 Brisbane are 2-16 at the MCG. They’ve lost 12 straight there.

So no, despite beating Collingwood without Darcy Moore, Nick Daicos, Bobby Hill and Jordan De Goey at Marvel Stadium, I don’t think it’s going to be Brisbane.