Channel Seven got a boost in grand final broadcast ratings on last year’s one-sided affair,but it was no threat to the record set by the Matildas in August.
First there was the smother,then the collect,the evasive skills and the sublime finish. Zac Bailey might have kicked the best goal ever in a grand final,and it rated as one of our moments that mattered from an electrifying game.
There was no argument about who was best on ground in the grand final. Our player ratings show which other stars shone brightest and who lowered their colours under footy’s biggest spotlight.
Collingwood created more history on Saturday,winning a 16th VFL/AFL premiership to draw level with Essendon and Carlton on the flag table.
It was an epic grand final with ebbs and flows in every quarter,but in the end Collingwood prevailed over Brisbane by four points.
2023 AFL Grand Final match between the Collingwood Magpies and the Brisbane Lions at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
Nathan Murphy made the agonising call to rule himself out in the first half of Collingwood’s grand final triumph,while Steele Sidebottom’s initial intention was not to go for glory,but he changed his mind when he felt the wind at his back and Tom Mitchell has taken aim at his critics.
Mason Cox was standing the mark when Dom Sheed kicked the goal that won the grand final for West Coast in 2018. It’s a moment he has been trying to flush out of his mind ever since.
There was a quake recorded in Melbourne’s north early on Saturday,but it was barely a tremor compared to the convulsion that reverberated when Collingwood won.
Chris Fagan wasn’t buying into controversy over a decision to pay advantage (where there wasn’t one) to the Lions with just over a minute on the clock. But he did concede there were “some moments there where maybe,if things had’ve gone our way,we could have won that game”.
Craig McRae will never forget the last Saturday in September of 2023,in which he welcomed a baby daughter in the morning,forgot his shoes and then coached the Pies to a premiership.