'Irish wizard' Conor McKenna wins second AFL Premiership medal with Brisbane
CHAMPION: Tyrone's Conor McKenna of the Brisbane Lions celebrate victory after winning the AFL Grand Final against Fremantle Dockers and at Melbourne Cricket Ground on Saturday. Pic: Morgan Hancock/AFL Photos/via Getty Images
Tyrone’s Conor McKenna has become the first Irish player to win two AFL Premiership titles. McKenna scored a goal as the Brisbane Lions won their third successive Grand Final early Saturday with a 96-89 comeback victory over Fremantle Dockers before a crowd of 100,023 at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
McKenna added a second winners medal to the 2024 victory on top of his All-Ireland football medal with Tyrone from 2021. He became only the second player after Kerry's Tadhg Kennelly (Sydney Swans) to win a Celtic Cross and a Premiership medal when he went all the way with the Lions in 2024. Now he has yet another medal for his collection.
McKenna finished the final with one goal, three behinds and ten disposals. The Tyrone man scored an opportunistic goal in the second quarter when he gathered a bouncing ball and poked it between the posts.
McKenna wore a tricolour around his shoulders as he went to collect his medal. There is a possibility that it is his last AFL game. The 30-year-old is out of contract now that the season is over and while he has been offered a new deal, reports in Australia suggest he is weighing up his future.
Key Brisbane forwards Logan Morris and Charlie Cameron combined for six goals to help the Lions to an audacious 14.12 (96) - 12.17 (89) come-from-behind victory and their second three-peat, emulating their 2001-03 dynasty.
Brisbane nailed four goals in the final four minutes to overhaul a 17-point deficit, with Morris ensuring the Lions edged ahead in the final 60 seconds, kicking truly after taking a strong contested mark to give his side the lead and subsequently icing the game with a snap from 40 metres.
McKenna started as an interchange and grabbed a goal in the second period for Brisbane. Having already secured the league’s Goal of the Year award earlier this week, the Eglish man stooped to pick the ball up but managed to poke it low through a number of Fremantle defenders.
In the first half, ladder-toppers Fremantle - contesting their first Grand Final since 2013 - were not overawed by the occasion and forced the back-to-back defending champions into over-possession and risky corridor play, although nothing separated the teams on the scoreboard with 43 apiece.
Command shifted to the Dockers during the third quarter, but a leg injury to captain Alex Pearce left a void in their back-line, which the Lions capitalised on with three straight majors to narrow Fremantle's lead to 10 points at the final break.
"I thought we were in a bit of trouble, I’m not going to lie," Lions on-baller Will Ashcroft said, leading all comers with 31 disposals and three goal assists. "But it’s crazy, the swings of momentum in big games."
Late majors to forwards Michael Frederick and Patrick Voss (three goals) put the Dockers in the box seat, but they will be left to rue a shocking miss from the goal square by Josh Treacy which left the door ajar for a Lions resurgence.
Cameron converted his third to get the ball rolling and a quick follow-up by midfielder Zac Bailey in the dying minutes set the stage for Morris to steer his side to their sixth title in the top-flight of Australian Rules football, denying Fremantle their first AFL premiership in the process.
“If there’s one thing I know about this group and this club, we won’t give up, we’ll fight and we’ll be back here again,” Pearce said.
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