Things could have gone very differently on Saturday night for Joe Daniher.
The Brisbane Lions star’s brain fade on the stroke of half time – where he took a stunning pack mark near goal, only to handball off to a teammate as the siren sounded – may at another point in his career seen his head drop, his body language plummet and his team stumble to defeat.
Indeed, former great Dermott Brereton was scathing of Daniher’s blunder, taking the one-time Bomber to task for ‘smartarse’ behaviour.
“We’re on late enough to say this – that’s a smart arse,” Brereton said on Fox Footy at half time.
“Just kick the goal! You’ve taken a towering mark, kick the goal back over the bloke’s head you’ve taken the specky on and look him in the eye and say, ‘That was pretty good, wasn’t it?’”
Instead, Daniher picked himself up, dusted himself off and proved the difference in a scrappy match, booting three second-half goals and four for the match in the Lions’ 11.14 (80) to 10.9 (69) win.
Trailing by 15 points heading into the final quarter after a dominant third term by the Power, it was Daniher who sparked the Lions to life, kicking two goals in quick succession as the Lions ran away with the match late.
So impressed was Brereton by Daniher’s recovery that he even deigned to give the 28-year old honours as one of his best afield, alongside Power stars Travis Boak (32 touches and a goal) and Dan Houston (36 and two).
“My top three, in no particular order… Boak, Houston and Daniher,” Brereton said after the match.
“I want to not give Daniher votes, because of that brain fade at half time! I thought he was being a smartypants.
“But you take four contested marks up in the front half, and you kick four – which probably really was a five! – that’s a big night in a team which kicks 11.”
After the match, a candid Daniher admitted he’d ‘like to have that one back’, but defended his own selflessness in being willing to pass off a likely goal.
“It’s the way I’m trying to play,” Daniher told Channel 7 immediately following the final siren.
“I don’t think the coach will be too worried about it because we got the four points, but a little bit more game awareness would have been nice.”
According to fellow presenter and former AFL player Tony Armstrong, the moment epitomised Daniher’s career – both for good and ill.
“If you wanted to sum him up as a footballer, it’s that five seconds of play before the half,” Armstrong said.
“He takes the big hanger, and then he just doesn’t really think exactly where he is for a second, gives the ball away, siren goes!
“He brings a lot of joy to everyone, with the way that he plays and the smile that he has on his face.”
Brereton agreed, saying Daniher’s mercurial nature brought much-needed ‘theatre’ to the sport.
“You’re on the edge of your seat thinking, what is he going to do brilliantly next, what is he going to brilliantly stuff up next?” Brereton laughed.
“He gives you all the emotions in one afternoon, one evening of football.”
Joe Daniher celebrates a goal during the round one AFL match between the Brisbane Lions and the Port Adelaide Power. (Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)
Daniher’s heroics were the shining light in a scrappy opening for two of last year’s premier teams, played in hot and greasy conditions at the Gabba.
Certainly, the weather played its part in the torrid affair in Daniher’s eyes.
“It wasn’t pretty for both sides I think… it was going to be an arm wrestle and it was,” he said.
“The boys just lifted, probably got more comfortable with the tempo of the game. It was really hot early, and that took some getting used to.”
A whopping 136 clangers were committed by the two sides combined, despite the relatively low possession counts (Port 357, the Lions 329), and saw several players set up by so-called ‘hospital passes’ throughout the night.
According to Brereton, the first half in particular resembled that of two sides nearer the bottom of the ladder than the top.
“At half time, I thought the standard of the game was befitting two teams in the bottom six. They looked really, really rusty,” he said.
“They kept trying to chip it inside, we were upstairs wincing, and they kept missing targets.
“The Lions got the win in the end, but he [coach Chris Fagan] would want to get the rustiness out of them.”
Few players rose above the standard, though Lachie Neale’s composure and clean hands in midfield proved critical in the Lions’ last-quarter surge; while up forward, Lincoln McCarthy was a constant menace.
For Armstrong, it was the sort of game Fagan will be keen to strike from the record and move on from.
“I think it’s one of those ones where he will go, ‘alright, we’ve got our four points, thanks goodness for that, but geez, we can really go to so many more levels, thank god we got away with that one’,” Armstrong said.
Both sides will be left counting the cost of the hard-fought clash, with the Lions losing captain Dayne Zorko for much of the second half as his troublesome Achilles, which had his fitness in doubt leading into the match, flared up. Daniel Rich also had work done on his hip flexor in the second quarter, but played out the match.
Tought nut Mitch Robinson could also find himself in strife with Match Review Officer Michael Christian, after a high bump saw Port youngster Xavier Duursma suffer a suspected collarbone injury that saw him substituted out of the game shortly after.
For the Power, alongside Duursma, defender Trent McKenzie suffered the most serious injury of the evening, clutching his knee during the final term and stretchered off.