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VELOCITY SPORTS NEWS

A all-time record 'away' win

Saturday 28 July 2007

Saturday 28 July 2007. The Brisbane Football Club played its 231st match interstate. It was arch-rivals Collingwood on the big stage, with a crowd in excess of 45,000 and a live TV audience around Australia.

For Josh Drummond and Cheynee Stiller it was their first game at the MCG. And for Jason Roe it was a meeting with the club with which he served as a rookie in 2003 before being cast aside.

And it was night they and everyone else connected with the Brisbane Lions would never forget.

The Lions, a lowly 12th on the AFL ladder despite a hat-trick of wins and a 117-point slaughter of Carlton at the Gabba six days earlier, confronted a Magpie outfit that sat comfortably in 6th position and bound for the finals. They were not without a chance, but went in as underdogs

Yet by full-time they had obliterated the Pies to post the club's biggest ever interstate win.

The 93-point margin on a scoreboard which read Brisbane 22-17 (149) to Collingwood 7-14 (56) topped the 85-point win over Melbourne at the MCG in round 12, 1997.

As Mike Horan of the Sunday Herald Sun noted in his match report, until this match the most humiliating match Collingwood has suffered this century was a 50-point capitulation to the Lions in the 2003 Grand Final. This went far beyond that, even if the stakes weren't as high.

The Lions jumped out of the blocks quickly, kicking 7-6 to 1-3, and were never headed. They won every quarter, dominating possession from the middle of the ground and making the Pies look seemingly inept. They run in numbers from defence with tremendous effect, and were positively brutal in their attack on the football and with their tackling intensity and efficiency.

The enigmatic Jared Brennan kicked a career-best seven goals - 7-5 to be exact from 15 kicks and 10 marks. Jed Adcock, emerging as a goal-kicking midfielder of the highest quality, kicked four goals to go with 27 possessions, and Jonathan Brown, coming off a club record 10 goals against Carlton in round 16, kicked three goals from 15 possessions and 12 marks.

Simon Black was supreme around the contest with 30 possessions and 12 clearances - seven more clearances than the next best player - while Luke Power had 27 and was also damaging, likewise Nigel Lappin with 24 possessions, and livewire Rhan Hooper turned 23 possessions into three goals. Jamie Charman set it up with a dominant display in  the ruck.

Stiller had 19 kicks, 11 marks and seven handballs in a busy display on the wing to be among the Lions' best, while Roe, playing in defence, had nine possessions and kicked a brilliant running goal when he joined a customary wave of Brisbane players pushing forward from the back half.

Drummond went into the game carrying a minor calf strain and finished with a heavy knock to the head, a sore knee and a bad ankle. It wasn't personally an MCG he'll remember but the occasion was special ... extra special