Sydney glitz or Brisbane grit? Who casual onlookers should get behind in AFL grand final

It’s state against state, mate against mate. But this isn’t State of Origin. Saturday’s AFL grand final between the Sydney Swans and the Brisbane Lions is a puzzler for neutrals, casuals and bandwagon jumpers. Forced to choose between two non-Victorian teams for the first time since 2006, do Melburnians fall back on the old Yarra divide that once split South Melbourne and Fitzroy? Will people in western Sydney barrack for the Lions, who knocked the Giants out in a heartbreaker less than two weeks ago? Or will they grit their teeth and back the mortal enemy? Who’s more annoying – Dayne Zorko or Tom Papley?

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All these questions and more will decide which team wins the hearts and minds of the undecided masses.

Sydney Swans

It’s a difficult reality for one-eyed rugby league fans to accept, but it’s undeniable – thanks to the Swans, Sydney is no longer a one-code town. With a rabid fanbase in the city’s eastern and northern suburbs, and home crowds that most NRL teams would kill for, the Swans could make a case for being the most successful expansion team of any Australian sport.

It wasn’t always this way. After their controversial move from South Melbourne in 1982, the Swans spent some long, arduous years in expansion-club purgatory. The club weathered the empty stands, dismal ratings, financial bailouts and talk of upping sticks to Canberra, doggedly carving out a place for themselves in Sydney’s unforgiving sporting landscape. The good times, when they finally came, were all the sweeter for being hard earned.

Now they’re as much a part of the harbour city’s fabric as the Opera House on their jerseys – a glitzy, moneyed outfit that’s become a regular in finals footy. With success comes resentment – the ‘snobs’ tag from their cross-town and cross-code rivals is one that’s stuck – but that won’t bother a team this close to another flag.

Besides a case of the mid-season wobbles, the Swans cruised to the minor premiership and emphatically dispatched Port Adelaide in last week’s prelim. They showed enormous grit to run down the Giants in the first week of the finals, a classic in which star midfielder Isaac Heeney had the touch of God about him.

The Swans have played in seven grand finals since moving to Sydney, but they’ve only won two. If they lose, schadenfreude levels across the nation will skyrocket. If they lose, schadenfreude levels across the nation will skyrocket. If they win, expect a wave of celebratory Paddington brunches.

Barrack for if: You have run the City2Surf more than zero times.

Barrack against if: The thought of doing that makes you bilious.

Brisbane Lions

Despite coming agonisingly close to the premiership last year, the Lions come into 2024’s decider as underdogs. Having finished the regular season in fifth place on the ladder, they would be only the second team in history to win the flag from outside the top four.

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If anyone can defy the weight of that history, though, it just might be Brisbane. Their run to the decider already has the feel of something momentous about it.

A tough draw and a horror run of injuries – young gun defender Keidean Coleman lasted half of Opening Round before rupturing his ACL – saw the Lions start 2024 in shocking form. It looked as though last year’s grand final loss to Collingwood had drained the fight out of them. By the season’s halfway point, media pundits were ready to start the post-mortems into where it all went wrong. But the Lions finally found their rhythm, ambushing the rest of the comp with a booming nine-week winning streak that vaulted them back into contention.

The finals have transformed the Lions into a different beast. The 31-point deficit they ran down in the final quarter of their semi against the Giants will go down in club history. A week later they did it again, clawing back Geelong’s 25-point lead to win a nailbiter prelim. Brisbane fans are daring to dream like it’s 2001 again.

Barrack for if: You Believe.

Barrack against if: You’re nostalgic for the old Brisbane Bears, whose on-field woes earned them the nickname “Bad News Bears”.