EDITORIAL: Being a champion takes more than excellence

It takes more than excellence to win an AFL grand final.

To achieve that highest of glories, you need to keep being excellent. Week after week, for seven months.

Flashes won’t get you there.

You’ve got to be able to sustain that excellence. That’s what separates the coulda-beens from the true contenders.

The Lions and the Cats are two teams that know the slog that goes into maintaining excellence, to continue performing at the highest level instead of flaming out.

They’ve created cultures of success. Forget the old cliche about “taking it one game at a time”. These are teams that think in eras.

The Lions and Cats sit equal with Hawthorn as the most successful AFL club this century. All three have won four premierships since 2000.

By Saturday evening, we’ll know which can claim to be the greatest club of the modern era.

This is Brisbane’s third consecutive grand final. As the defending premiers, they will be hoping to emulate the club’s all conquering period of success of the early noughties, during which they won a staggering three back-to-back premierships.

That they are on the cusp of consecutive flags is all the more remarkable given the dire state they were in when coach Chris Fagan came to the club in 2017. From a wooden spoon in his first year, the Lions have now played finals football for seven consecutive years.

On the other side of the ledger, the Cats have been challengers all along.

Saturday will mark Geelong’s seventh grand final appearance this century, the most of any club. They’ve won more of those games than they’ve lost, a record they’ll be desperate to maintain.

This is about more than just premiership glory. It’s greater than Australia’s greatest sporting spectacle. It’s bragging rights over the first quarter of a century.

And as ever, there is no shortage of drama.

There’s Brisbane captain’s Lachie Neale seemingly miraculous recovery from what was believed to have been a season-ending calf injury.

Neale says he’s confident that he can get through a full game of football, though whether that will be required of him or not, only Fagan knows for sure. And he’s not telling.

Neale is no stranger to playing through pain. He captained Brisbane to victory last year with plantar fasciitis. Playing him on Saturday has to be a risk, no matter how much Fagan tries to downplay it. But it could be one with the biggest pay-off of all.

For the Cats, the big story is Patrick Dangerfield. At 35, he showed us all last week that he is still capable of playing the best footy of his life.

He already knows what it’s like to win a premiership, but not what it’s like to do so as captain. To do so would be the crowning achievement in a stellar 18-year career.

What would it mean?

Leave it Snoop Dogg to put it into words.

“I know that it’s not just a sport, it’s a way of life,” the rapper, who will provide the grand final’s pre-game entertainment said this week.

“I know it’s not just a team or club, it’s part of your DNA.”

Responsibility for the editorial comment is taken by Editor-in-Chief Christopher Dore.