It is going on 54 years since a 19-year-old Norm Dare debuted for Fitzroy. It was 17 August 1968 against Geelong at Princes Park in the days of a 19^th and 20^th man. He spent most of the game on the bench before getting a late run and finished with just one kick in a 22-point loss.

Yet from this inauspicious debut, came a great Lions man whose role in the history of the Brisbane Lions is much more significant than the now 77-year-old, who coached the Brisbane Bears in 1990, is given credit for.

Dare played 72 games for Fitzroy from 1968-74 and in 1977, split by a two-year stint with West Torrens in the SANFL where he once famously jumped the fence and hid in the crowd to avoid trouble for his team after officials had called for a head count.

Dare was a fine young talent. In his 7^th game, he had a career-best 33 possessions as Fitzroy beat St.Kilda by 16 points at Moorabbin. In his 21^st game he had 30 possessions as the Lions famously beat Richmond at Junction Oval after trailing at every change.

But he wasn’t called ‘Skinny’ for nothing. Officially he was 73kg although the suspicion was always that he was weighed with his boots on. And more. So when his playing days were up at 28 he became a coach. And a very special coach.

After a 1978-89 apprenticeship with the Fitzroy Reserves he moved north to become one of the great coaches in Queensland football history.

So, in the ‘Remember When – Round 19’  flashback this week, we zero in on Dare’s greatest moment as coach of the Bears in Round 19 1990 against Geelong at Carrara.

Dare was an almost reluctant senior coach after serving as assistant coach to Peter Knights in 1989.

But in 1990 he answered a virtual SOS from the club to take over as senior coach after Paul Feltham, caretaker coach in the last seven games of 1989, was discarded.

It was only ever going to be a one-year term while the club transitioned from the foundation era under Paul Cronin and Christopher Skase to the new private ownership of Reuben Pelerman, and on-field expectations were low.

Heading into Round 19 the Bears sat at the bottom of the 14-team ladder with a 3-15 record as they prepared to take on 10^th-placed Geelong.

But Dare had never forgotten the Bears’ loss to the Cats on their previous visit to Carrara 13 months earlier which had cost Knights his job. And nor had the 10 members of that side who would turn out against them again in 1990.

Backing up were first-year captain Roger Merrett, Steve Reynoldson, Brad Hardie, Mike Richardson, Scott McIvor, Mark Zanotti, David Bain, Mark Roberts, Marcus Ashcroft and John Gastev.

Dare was well-satisfied when Bears led 5-3 to 4-4 at quarter-time but was positively blown away when they blitzed the Cats 8-3 to 1-3 in the second quarter before adding 7-3 to 4-2 in the third.

At the last change it was 20-9 to 9-9. It didn’t matter that Geelong split the final quarter. The damage was done. The Bears claimed one of the great victories of the club’s early year 25-13 (163) to 14-13 (97).

Not surprisingly, the players backing up from 13 months earlier were the stars. Merrett kicked eight goals and picked up three Brownlow Medal votes, while Zanotti’s 18 possessions and non-stop run from defence earned him two votes and Bain picked up one vote for his game-high 37 possessions.

Hardie kicked four goals and Richardson and Roberts three apiece, while McIvor was second only to Bain in the possession count with 28. Richardson and Gastev had 23 possessions, Merrett 21 and Reynoldson 21 and Roberts 19.

The surprise packet was Peter Davidson, a two-game West Coast Eagle playing his fourth game for the Bears. He had 25 possessions and kicked a goal in the only win of a seven-game stint in maroon and gold.

Playing just their fifth game for the Bears were Queensland youngsters Ray Windsor (on his 18^th birthday) and David Wearne, while a 19-year-old Shaun Hart played his 10^th game in what was the 100^th AFL game for Rod Lester-Smith.

2009 – An Unlikely Hero

If you were told the Lions of 2009 would snatch a draw against Essendon in Round 19 at the MCG due to a diving smother and then a desperate clearance from the same player who would you think it might be?

On the assumption it sounds like a small defender or a midfielder maybe Ash McGrath or Simon Black? Justin Sherman or Jack Redden? Wrong! The hero in a nail-biting final quarter was power forward, Jonathan Brown.

The sixth-placed Lions trailed ninth-placed Essendon by 15 points at three-quarter time before Michael Rischitelli, Daniel Bradshaw and Scott Harding posted the first three goals of the final term. Lions were up by six.

But the Bombers, a game outside the top eight, hit back when Irishman Michael Quinn kicked his first career goal to square it and then Angus Monfries put the home side a goal clear.

After the next eight minutes produced two behinds for each Essendon looked home when they had the ball deep in defence with 20 seconds to play. They just had to retain possession.

But as they looked to switch play Brown dived desperately at a kick that was just a fraction slow and knocked it out of bounds to cause a throw-in 10m around from the behind post with 17 seconds on the clock.

There were players from both sides everywhere as Essendon just tried to bottle it up, but somewhere Brown gathered the ball and, as he went to ground in a tackle facing the opposite end, threw it on his boot from 15m.

Fortuitously, it landed on the chest of teammate Daniel Bradshaw, who had been well held all day by Dustin Fletcher. The siren went before Bradshaw, as casual as ever, kicked it over the goal umpire’s hat to tie the scores.

It was Brisbane 12-15 (87) to Essendon 13-9 (87) and a wonderful redemption for the never-say-die attitude of big ‘Browny’, who was in his first season as skipper under new coach Michael Voss.

2010 – Twelve Months Later …

There were no surprises in Round 19 2010 when Brisbane played West Coast at Subiaco in what was virtually a wooden-spoon grand final. The Lions were 15^th with five wins and a percentage of 79.6, and the Eagles were 16^th with four wins and a percentage of 76.3.

The Lions had lost eight in a row going into Daniel Merrett’s 100^th game, but after being 18 points up at halftime they led by just seven at the change.

In a frantic final stanza each side kicked just one major. First, West Coast’s Andrew Strijk gleefully accepted a poor clearing kick from Michael Rischitelli in the defensive goal square to put them in front from 20m.

There was still 12 minutes to play but the ball was jammed between the 50m arcs. A Daniel Rich behind cut it to a point three minutes out before the Eagles shut it down again.

It all came down to one last play. Merrett bombed it long to a contest 40m out where the irrepressible Jonathan Brown planted his feet and out-bodied the Eagles’ Mitch Brown to mark over his head.

Off the boot it looked like his kick was going left, but he bent it back beautifully to put Brisbane up 10-10 (70) to 9-11 (65), thrusting his trademark one-finger salute skyward to the loud boos of the Eagles fans and a suggestion from Jason Dunstall in commentary that it was “a very, very interesting decision”.

But there were still five seconds on the clock, and Dunstall suggested the home side needed a free kick and a 50m penalty. It didn’t come and Brisbane triumphed to sentence West Coast to their first and still only wooden-spoon.

Brown’s 10 marks and five goals in his 199^th game earned him one Brownlow Medal vote, but the star was Michael Rischitelli on route to what would be a Merrett/Murray Medal win at the end of the season. He had 29 possessions for three votes.

2019: This one is for ‘Hodgey’

Luke Hodge had been a regular visitor to Launceston throughout his AFL glorious AFL at Hawthorn, playing 46 games at the club’s home-away-from-home from 2002-17 for a 35-1-10 record.

After his move to Brisbane in 2018 he would just once to the northern centre of Tasmania to play against the Hawks. In 2018 he missed the Lions’ 33-point Round 17 win, but in Round 19 2019 he was on deck as the second-placed visitors chased top spot against a Hawks side that was a game outside the top eight.

It was Darcy Gardiner’s 100^th game and, unknown at the time, it was Hodge’s third and last game against his old club. Playing as if they were fully aware of the significance of the occasion to the 35-year-old mega-champion, the Lions kicked 10-8 to 4-14 after quarter-time to win 13-9  (87) to 7-18 (60) and deliver Hodge a 3-0 record against the Hawks.

It was Hodge’s 340^th game overall and his 47^th game in Launceston – the ground record until Shaun Burgoyne played his 48^th in what was his 406^th and penultimate career game in Round 22 last year.

Lachie Neale had 33 possessions to poll three votes in the Brownlow Medal – the 12^th time in 18 games for the season in which he figured in the votes, but not even three more in Round 23 could see him run down Nat Fyfe’s 33 votes for Fremantle. In his first season with the Lions, Neale would finish equal third with 26 votes.

2021: A Century for McCluggage

Hugh McCluggage played his 100^th game for the Lions on a Saturday afternoon at the Gabba in Round 19 last year. It was Q-Clash #21 and Nakia Cockatoo’s first game in Brisbane colors, and when the Gold Coast Suns led 9-6 to 4-9 at halftime it didn’t look good.

But in the second half the Lions mauled the Suns 13-9 to 1-5, holding the visitors goalless for 59 minutes before their only major score after halftime came four minutes from the final siren.

And even then, as if they resented the minor lapse, the Lions kicked the last two goals for a 17-18 (120) to 10-11 (71) triumph – their sixth in a row against their Queensland rivals for a 15-6 head-to-head record overall.

Jarrad Lyons had 33 possessions for three Brownlow Medal votes and his second Marcus Ashcroft Medal of the season, having also won it in the Lions’ 73-point romp at Metricon Stadium in Round 9.

This saw Lyons replicate the 2019 Ashcroft Medal ‘double’ of Dayne Beams and made him the fifth multiple winner of the medal for the player judged best afield in the Q-Clash. Beams won it three times overall, while Lion turned Sun Pearce Hanley, who won it twice in Brisbane colors, and Gold Coast pair Gary Ablett and Touk Miller also have two.

Oscar McInerney polled the first and still only Brownlow vote of his career in his 73^rd game, enjoying 18 possessions (16 contested possessions), 39 hit-outs and a career-best 12 clearances.