Brisbane Lions seal AFL hat-trick to cap off incredible year

Was this the best we've ever seen? The extraordinary burst that defined a year

Sometimes a football season saves its best until last.. The 2026 version didn't so much save it as unleash it in one extraordinary burst.. There were 218 games played this year, but there's a fair argument the best three came in the final nine days..

Fremantle's stunning preliminary final comeback against Sydney, Brisbane's epic shootout with Hawthorn the following evening, then a grand final which arguably trumped even those two, the Lions coming from 17 points down with barely four minutes remaining to pinch a seven-point win and a third successive premiership, are already the stuff of AFL legend.. Three games which weren't merely the best of this season, but deserve to be talked about among the best we've seen, full stop.. It was some finish to a season which certainly hadn't lacked incident..

Brisbane became only the third team this century to complete a premiership hat-trick, alongside its own 2001-03 combination and Hawthorn of 2013-15.. Perhaps the most impressive part was that this version of the Lions wasn't always particularly convincing.. At 6-6 after three successive losses, including a 25-point defeat at home to Fremantle, Brisbane looked vulnerable..

Even its finals campaign began with a hiding from Sydney.. But champion teams find ways.. By the end, Chris Fagan's group was doing so almost ridiculously, surviving Adelaide, then Hawthorn, before kicking the last four goals of the grand final to break Fremantle hearts..

If Brisbane remained the benchmark, Fremantle finally became everything its supporters have spent most of three decades hoping it might.. The Dockers finished top, went through the home-and-away season unbeaten at Optus Stadium and reached only the second grand final in their history.. They did it with considerably more attacking weaponry than previous Fremantle incarnations, Jye Amiss, Josh Treacy and Patrick Voss providing marking targets, Shai Bolton electricity and a midfield capable of matching anyone..

Their grand final defeat will hurt.. But after 31 seasons of largely underachievement, Fremantle finally looked and felt like a genuinely powerful football club.. Sydney's season, meanwhile, turned into something nobody could have scripted..

The Swans had secured second spot before the suspension of Isaac Heeney, Chad Warner, Nick Blakey, James Jordon and Riley Bice for the remainder of the season following their involvement in an alleged hotel incident which became the subject of a police investigation.. It appeared capable of destroying their premiership hopes.. Instead, Sydney smashed dual premier Brisbane in a qualifying final without them and came within one quarter of a grand final before Fremantle's remarkable last-term surge..

Hawthorn also took another significant step, stunning minor premier Fremantle in Perth before falling nine points short of Brisbane in a classic preliminary final.. Nick Watson's six goals that night underlined his emergence as a genuine star.. Adelaide continued its climb back towards relevance, while Taylor Walker's retirement after 319 games and 715 goals closed the book on one of the club's great careers..

And somehow Geelong remained Geelong.. Again.. The Cats were back in September and reached a semi-final before Fremantle ended their run, their capacity to regenerate while supposedly approaching a cliff one of modern football's more remarkable constants..

There was plenty of upheaval elsewhere, particularly in the coaches' boxes.. Michael Voss departed Carlton after a disastrous 1-8 start, only for interim replacement Josh Fraser to engineer one of the season's more remarkable revivals.. The Blues won 10 games and drew another from Fraser's first 13, climbed back into the finals and beat Melbourne in the inaugural wildcard round, turning what had looked another wasted season into one with genuine momentum..

Essendon went the other way.. Brad Scott was sacked after the Bombers managed only one win from their first 11 games, prompting yet another coaching search for a club which has spent two decades trying to recapture the stability and relevance it once took for granted.. North Melbourne also decided four years of the Alastair Clarkson experiment was enough..

For perhaps the greatest coach of the modern era, it was an ending few would have envisaged when he arrived at Arden Street amid such fanfare.. There was change to the competition itself, too, the introduction of wildcard finals expanding September from eight teams to 10.. Traditionalists weren't universally enamoured, but the first version could hardly have gone much better commercially, more than 172,000 fans packing the MCG across two nights..

And whatever the arguments about whether 10 finalists from an 18-team competition is too generous, they certainly gave the end of the home-and-away season another layer of intrigue.. Individually, Nick Daicos finally claimed the Brownlow Medal after three successive near-misses, his 47 votes a record under the current voting system.. Charlie Curnow's first season at Sydney produced a third Coleman Medal with 69 goals, while Carlton youngster Jagga Smith's Rising Star award was another positive in a season which had looked beyond redemption by early May..

But ultimately, 2026 will be remembered for its finish.. For Fremantle roaring home at the SCG.. For Brisbane and Hawthorn trading blows in a frantic final quarter..

And then for a grand final in which the Dockers seemed only minutes from history before Brisbane produced one last act of defiance.. Three magnificent games in nine days.. And after another AFL season full of administrative noise, controversies, sackings, rule debates and endless distractions, perhaps there was something reassuring about that..

Because when everything else was stripped away, it was the actual football which provided the most compelling talking point of all..