Brisbane coach Chris Fagan has branded Joe Daniher a “big game” player and was confident the star Lion would deliver when it mattered most in the Lions thrilling five point semi-final win over the Giants on Saturday night in Sydney.
The veteran coach said Brisbane’s thrilling comeback from 44-points down to defeat the Giants in the sudden-death semi-final is “one that I will never forget” and said the atmosphere in the Lions’ rooms afterwards was supercharged.
“You don’t very often have days like that in footy and that will be one that I will never forget,” he said.
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“It was just one of the great comeback wins. I am very proud of the group. We stuck to our guns and when everything looked lost, we hung in there, which has been the team all year. The character of the team was on display tonight and it sort of summed up our season.”
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Having trailed for almost the entirety of the night, Daniher was able to wrest the lead back for Brisbane with two superb set shots in the dying stages.
He kicked his third goal for the night from outside the boundary line after the Giants were penalised for deliberately knocking the ball out of bounds and then the match-winner from a similarly testing angle after out-marking brilliant defender Sam Taylor.
“(I’m) very happy but I am not surprised that he kicked them. He lives for those big moments,” Fagan said.
“He will do some things and you will scratch your head and go, ‘What is he doing?’. But under pressure tonight, and it doesn’t get any bigger than that, he kicked them straight through the middle.
“I was fairly confident, because he usually goes well from that side … even if it doesn’t seem right. He has been a great finals performer for us. You think about what he did in last year’s finals series? He kicked more goals than any other player. He is a big game player.”
The Giants led by 44 points at the 18min mark of the third term and had overrun the Lions in their two previous meetings this year.
But in a season where Brisbane has been under pressure after a slow start, Fagan said he never lost faith, reiterating to his players at half-time the “dancing on thin ice” theme that has been a factor in the Lions resurgence in the second half of the season.
He believed the margin flattered the Giants. He knew Brisbane could score quickly. And he was aware the Giants had coughed up a dominant lead against the Swans in a qualifying final a week earlier, which is something he reminded his players of at the final change.
“We obviously knew that and sometimes in sport, history repeats and it can be something in the back of your mind if you can get close enough,” he said.
“I don’t know if it did that or not, but we just had to give ourselves a chance to see if that can happen. At the end of the day, people might say that is two weeks in a row for the Giants. That is a weakness in them. It is temporary. It is just one of those things that happened.
“But we talked about it. We needed to find things to stay positive and it was worth talking about it.”
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Champions including Lachie Neale and Dayne Zorko struggled for influence, but they had their moments, with the latter kicking a couple of critical goals despite playing off half-back flank.
Fagan, who praised the drive provided by Will Ashcroft, has no doubt the heartbreak of last year when Brisbane was beaten by Collingwood by four points was a motivating factor for elder Lions like Zorko and Daniher to dig even deeper in the final term.
“Probably. I know they are desperate to get back there and have another crack,” he said.
“There is still a long way to go before we can do that. We play Geelong next week. They are a pretty damn good football club and side and they gave us a lesson in a preliminary final a couple of years ago, but I have no doubt that (hurt) drives them.
“I look at Dayne Zorko and that drives him. He is 35 and he doesn’t know how many more years he has left to play the game and he desperately wants to win one. I think that drove the group. Joey Daniher is the same. The guys who are a little older, they lifted in that last quarter, I have no doubt about that.”
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