Anatomy of a Premiership

All season Southport had dominated.

Their explosive run and carry game had been too much.

They rag-dolled the Bull Sharks in both home and away meetings.

The first was a 66-point drubbing.

In hindsight, rather than lament the 37-point defeat that followed later in the season, perhaps more attention should have been paid to the fact that Bond had halved the previous losing margin.

More attention should definitely have been paid to the Bull Sharks’ preliminary final form.

Bond had struggled with Coorparoo’s physicality for a while. 

The Blues – big and strong - had bullied them out of finals contention last season, and out-muscled them again twice this year.

But the Bull Sharks decided enough was enough.

They jumped the Blues on their home deck to effectively kill the game by half time.

The Bull Sharks piled on 7.8 (50) in the end.

Coorparoo went goalless. 

***

Bond coach Andy Lovell always enjoys a quiet Monday morning recap, but after his side's preliminary final win he was particularly keen for a chat.

“We were fierce,” coach Andy Lovell said in the Bond Sport offices after that Coorparoo game.

“We were really, really good.”

It had given him quiet reason to believe.

“Can you win the whole thing?” I’d asked.

“I reckon we will,” he said. “I mean, why not?”

But if Lovell’s confidence had grown, few pundits gave the Bull Sharks much hope.

I can recall only one.

Speaking on the QAFLW’s pre-match vodcast, commentator Amanda Whitehead seemed to have recognised something was brewing at The Canal. 

"I truly believe Andy's got his team ready," she'd mused.

"It was a scary game of football on the weekend.

"I do believe it'll be a Bond win." 

***

Football is a winter sport, so you don’t really expect to be driving through thick bushfire haze on the way to a game.

Nor do you expect the temperature gauge on your dashboard to be ticking over 38 degrees when you're pulling into the carpark.

On arrival, Brighton Homes Arena is an absolute furnace.

Understandably, Bond’s pre-game warm up is brief. 

The players are relaxed, though. They're cheering successful practice shots to the beefy riff in Wolfmother’s ‘The Joker and the Thief’.

A large Bond contingent is tucked in behind the interchange bench – Ressies, friends, former players.

Maisy Evans - recently called up to AFLW club GWS Giants - has made the trip. 

The 2024 Riewoldt Family AFL Excellence Scholar is a rusted-on Bull Shark. It’s not the first time she’s flown in to see her former teammates play.

There’s more Bond blue than Southport white, that’s for sure. 

There’s a buzz about it all.

We’re on here, I’m thinking.

I don’t have a clue, of course.

But when you're twitchy with nerves you do tend to give deeper meaning to these kinds of pre-match feelings.

The teams line up for the anthem and with the sun absolutely blasting down, we’re underway.

Skye White wins the first tap and then wins a free kick from the second. She finds Grace Ella who gives off to Evy Reeves. Reeves has a ping from fifty and gets a decent piece of it. The ball gathers momentum with each bounce and beats everyone through for the game’s opening goal.

Bond have their first after 43 seconds.

Not sure Southport budgeted for this kind of start.

There was pre-game talk swirling around local footy circles that Southport were steeling themselves as a class above; that Bond weren’t in their league. 

Maybe it was just gossip. 

But if that was the message going in, it wouldn’t hold water now.

These Bull Sharks have turned up to play.

Southport battle to get the ball past centre. Bond’s tackling is fierce, their pressure around the contest stifling.

Jas Davidson sets up another Bond forward foray with an excellent tackle. 

Her shot falls short, but Southport are wedged deep in defence and struggling to find an exit point.

They eventually break clear but Charlie Adamson - also a Riewoldt Scholar - harasses her opponent into error and Bond surges again.

Millar Brosnan-Ball takes a strong mark and keeps the ball moving. 

Kendra Blattman can’t quite haul in the one-hander but she collects her own crumb and kicks truly. 

Bond couldn’t kick a goal the last time these teams met. 

Today they’ve jagged two unanswered before the eight-minute mark of the first term. 

Southport star Olivia Meagher eventually earns a gettable set shot.

She misses. 

Trinity Ella and Lexi Samuels respond by laying the kinds of tackles that make those sorts of misses sting.

Halle Geyer, Beth Pinchin and skipper Grace Moodie are a wall in defence.

Shannon Nolan - all heart - is everywhere.

The early moments of the second quarter follow the script.

Bond wills the ball forward.

Charlotte Taylor spins her way out of trouble and offloads to Evy Reeves who finds Brosnan-Ball. She can’t mark but her long handball inside is a gem. Amelia Ella swings onto her right and drills it. 

Bond have another just 30 seconds after the resumption. 

The Bull Sharks are first to the fall of the ball almost every time. They’re too quick. Their tackles are sticking. 

We’re a long way from finished, but it already feels a lot like Bond’s day. 

It remains insanely hot.

A young umpire has already fallen foul of it. She’s been subbed out.

In Bond’s interchange area, a blue bucket full of iced towels is doing a roaring trade.

Players are wrapped up like mummies in an effort to get their core temperature down.

Faces are flushed and few succumb to their haunches, but no one’s complaining.

Well, no one except for another of Bond’s Riewoldt Family AFL Excellence Scholars, Kiera Zerafa.

She’s having none of that wet towel business.

Perhaps that’s the kind of resilience a season of footy in Darwin instils.

Seven minutes in Southport eventually kick their first through Tayla Christensen, but it doesn’t really provide the bump they’d have hoped for.

Bond’s pressure is infectious.

Again, the Bull Sharks force the ball forward with intense defensive effort.

Charlotte Taylor finds herself free and takes her moment to cancel out any threat of a momentum shift. 

Bond leads by 17.

Even when Southport jag one back a few moments later it feels like it’s against the run.

***

Team Manager Jacqui White - mother of Bond’s star ruck Skye - emerges from the half-time sheds with a smile on her dial. 

“How’s the vibe?” I ask.

“They’re good as,” she says.

And they needed to be. In the opening moments of the second half, Southport push forward and threaten repeatedly but they still can’t find a way to score.

Bond on the other hand are finding targets and controlling the tempo. 

Southport rallies for a bit until Halle Geyer clunks a superb running mark on defensive fifty and all of a sudden Bond are attacking again. 

Southport give away a cheap free. Maybe a few cracks are starting to show.

Brosnan-Ball ices the shot.

Southport’s only scored 13 seriously hard-earned points to the halfway mark of the third term - the fabled 'premiership quarter'.

It’s hard to see how they’ll have time to mount a challenge.

***

Time always slows in the last quarter of a grand final. 

Fatigue sets in. Stoppages stack up. Maintaining safe possession trumps any kind of risky ball movement.

Things stop altogether when Skye White is absolutely crunched in a marking contest and needs treatment.

The doubts creep in. 

We can’t afford to lose her. Maybe this is the reset Southport were after. An unscheduled breather might be the ticket they need. 

White's fine, but Southport do rally.

Steph O’Brien, probably Southport’s best, is throwing everything into it. 

Her players follow. It’s now or never for the minor premier.

There’s push and shove as things get desperate.

Olivia Meagher impedes Charlie Adamson off the ball. The free is paid. 

A frustrated Meagher remonstrates.

It costs her team fifty metres and Adamson kicks what feels like the sealer from the top of the goal square.

She’s pumping her fists as she bolts to the bench urging the Bull Sharks crowd to get excited. 

She’s saying the quiet bit out aloud - this one is all but done.

On the siren the Bond bench spills on to the field and the Bull Sharks crowd hurdle the fence.

Tears are cutting tracks across dust-caked faces.

The joy is real here in the heat.

Shannon Nolan - 26 disposals, 14 contested possessions, six inside 50's, and nine tackles - is adjudged best afield, her medal the perfect accompaniment to the ‘best on’ she earned as part of Bond’s Reserves premiership side in 2023.

Evy Reeves (23 disposals and a goal) and Skye White (30 hit-outs and 10 disposals) also made huge contributions.

But this was a win marked by collective effort.

No one was carried.

Everyone took responsibility when their moment came.

A classic case of a team of champions beating a champion team. 

The celebrations continue loud and long in the sheds before everyone heads to a venue closer to home.

A logistical quirk has a few extra premiership medals floating about. 

One is handed to Jacqui White for her tireless team management efforts.

Assistant coaches Ben Holman, Craig Devonport and Nathan Thomas are acknowledged similarly.

Another finds its way into the hands of Maisy Evans.

She was a member of Bond's losing grand final side in 2024 and would have played today if AFLW opportunity hadn't knocked. 

She immediately re-gifts it to players sitting out today's win because of injury - Annabelle Lynch, Aleira Usher, Chloe Smith, Izzy Lowe and Bella Iverach. 

More joyful tears flow. 

No one would deny much loved trainer Tahi Reihana his due.

His contribution to the squad's development has been season-shaping.

But his mind's on Bella Iverach when he's handed a spare medal next day at the club's Mad Monday celebrations at Burleigh Bowling Club.

Iverach's injury is a very serious one. It not only ruined her season but also jeopardises her footy future. 

Without blinking he hands over his medal to her. 

***

The Bull Sharks turned over 25 players in 2024. Last year it was 21.

Each of their finals in the past month had been sudden death.

Their post-season campaign started with a desperate victory over Aspley Hornets played in sideways rain on a bitterly cold afternoon at The Canal.

They could have easily let their semi-final against Morningside slip but managed to find something when it mattered most and gutsed a 5-point win.

And on Sunday Bond lined up in 35-degree heat to overwhelm an almost unbackable favourite and claim a flag. 

After the game Andy Lovell labelled this batch of Bull Sharks the best team he’s ever coached.

Who'd dare argue?