The Brisbane Lions opened their time capsule this September and now sit one win away from avenging last year’s heartbreaking AFL grand final loss.

Twelve months after they fell four points short of beating Collingwood, the Lions return to the MCG on Saturday for another shot at premiership glory when they face Sydney in the first AFL grand final since 2006 not to feature a Victorian team.

After last year’s grand-final defeat, coach Chris Fagan urged his Lions to immediately confront their demons, reviewing the loss in depth before they went into their off-season break.

Starting the 2024 season 2-5, any hope the Lions had of redeeming themselves on grand final day looked like it might have to wait for another year.

But Brisbane have carried the lessons and missed opportunities from last year with them as they have gone on a finals run for the ages to again be in reach of the club’s first men’s premiership since 2003.

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“We did a bit of an exercise where we wrote all those things down [from last year’s grand final] and put them in a time capsule, not really knowing that we’d be pulling them out again this year,” Fagan said.

“But we pulled them out before the finals series this year, and all those things are fresh in our players’ minds, and hopefully it will help them.”

Fagan owned up about his own perceived failures, admitting not enough work was put into stopping Collingwood dynamo Bobby Hill, who ended up winning the Norm Smith Medal.