As the door closes on the 2026 AFL season, Harris Andrews stands proud and tall as the figurehead of an extraordinary chapter for the code in Queensland.
That the Brisbane Lions, with Andrews at the helm, could complete a 2024-25-26 premiership hat-trick to replicate the feat of the 2001-02-03 team is something that will forever warm the hearts of followers of the game in the Sunshine State.
And it confirms his standing as one of Queensland football’s true greats.
But it’s more than that. It’s the highlight moment of a major milestone for the code in the Sunshine State.
Unrecognised by many, it is 40 years since the then-VFL made a brave decision to bring the now-national game to Queensland via the Brisbane Bears, and begin the transformation of what had basically been a 12-team Victorian competition since 1897.
The relocation of South Melbourne in the early 1980s to become the Sydney Swans was the first step in the nationalisation of the game, but the expansion into Queensland and Western Australia via the Bears and the West Coast Eagles was the defining moment.
To the end of 1986, just 26 players from Queensland had played at the top level after Kedron centre half-back Erwin Dornau was the first in 1948.
He was followed by Ken Grimley and Tom Broadbent in the 1950s, Alan Hunter and Peter Ellis in the 1960s, and Ray Smith, Robert Shepherd, Richard Murrie, Colin Kimmorley, Barry Danny, Glen Scanlon, Warren Jones and Frank Dunell in the 1970s, and Zane Taylor, Brett Grimley, Gary Shaw, Carl Herbert, Dale Woodhall, Craig Brittain, Craig Potter, Rick Norman, Jason Dunstall, Scott McIvor, Michael Gibson, Trevor Spencer and Tony Smith through to 1986.
Since then, a further 189 players have graduated from Queensland ranks to the elite level.
Andrews, a skinny full forward from Aspley when drafted by the Lions with pick No.61 in the 2014 National Draft, is the figurehead of the 2024-25-26 premiership teams, just as Michael Voss, a one-time Morningside junior, was in 2001-02-03.
So Andrews, now a triple premiership captain, is an automatic choice as captain of the notional 2026 Queensland AFL Team of the Year.
Officially, there is no such team. But for the sake of something to consider over the off-season, we’re going to select one. It is:
B: Bodhi Uwland (GC), Harris Andrews (Bris – capt), Ty Gallop (Bris)
HB: Dayne Zorko (Bris), Aliir Aliir (Port), Bruce Reville (Bris)
C: Levi Ashcroft (Bris), Jaspa Fletcher (Bris), Corey Wagner (Frem)
HF: Ben Keays (Adel), Eric Hipwood (Bris), Leo Lombard (GC)
F: Charlie Cameron (Bris), Jed Walter (GC), Campbell Lake (StK)
R: Mabior Chol (Haw), Will Ashcroft (Bris), Jacob Dawson (S’port)
INT: Jack Bowes (Geel), Connor Budarick (WB), Matthew Hammelmann (RVP), Zeke Uwland (GC), Caylen Murray (Qld U18s)
COACH: Murray Davis (Adel)
Complaints? Questions? There will be plenty, so, first, some points of explanation.
It is a team for all of Queensland football, hence the inclusion of VFL star Jacob Dawson, QAFL star Matthew Hammelmann and Lions Academy Under-18 graduate Caylen Murray.
Dawson, co-captain of the Southport VFL team, was the No.2 vote-getter in the Liston Trophy for the VFL’s Best and Fairest Player. Having won the same prestigious award in 2025, the Palm Beach-Currumbin product polled 25 votes to finish one vote behind Port Melbourne’s ex-Essendon midfielder Ben Hobbs. But both were ineligible due to suspension.
Still, in an extension of what has been a wonderful career at the second-tier level after nine AFL games with the Suns in 2018-19, Dawson won the VFL Coaches’ MVP for the third time and was named in the centre in the VFL Team of the Year.
Hammelmann, a veritable goal-kicking machine with Redland, kicked 100 goals for the third time in four years to win his fifth Hughson Medal as the QAFL’s leading goal-kicker.
His career-high 123 goals is the best in the QAFL in exactly 50 years, and the fourth-best season tally in recorded QAFL history behind Gary Jones’ 142 for Morningside in 1976, Steve Taylor’s 131 for Wilston-Grange in 1969 and Jones’ 124 in 1975, and equal with Ray Marshall’s 123 for Windsor in 1951.
Now with 547 career goals, Hammelmann has gone past the 537 goals of Mayne star and Collingwood AFL player Dale Woodhall on the all-time list and sits seventh behind Morningside’s Kent Abey (787), Wests’ Owen Backwell (767), Hughson himself (680), Mayne’s Korey Fulton (669), Taylor (589) and Mayne’s Barry Spring (585).
It is a record which confirms the suspicion of many that, after he’d played just 12 AFL games with the Lions in 2016-17, Hammelmann was harshly treated when delisted with a year to run on his contract. He was only 21 at the time and had been played primarily in defence.
Murray, a running half-back flanker from Maroochydore via the Lions Academy, was the standout Queensland player at Under-18 level.
An All-Australian selection at U16 level in 2024, he was the only Queenslander chosen in this year’s All-Australian U18 side and won the Allies MVP award.
He had one astonishing game in the championships against South Australia, with 31 possessions, nine marks and 798m gained, and kicked two goals from half-back, and looms as the Queenslander likely to be taken first in this year’s draft.
Indeed, the Lions’ decision to trade Keidean Coleman to Essendon in the last minutes of the AFL trade period was driven by a need to secure enough points to match an early bid on Murray in the AFL Draft.
With the Lions to pay a 20 per cent ‘tax’ because they won the premiership, in what is always something of an imprecise science, they will most likely be able to counter a bid for Murray at any level beyond the top 10.
The 2026 Queensland Team of the Year is a team without a specialist ruckman, hence the inclusion of part-timer Mabior Chol from Hawthorn. The only other option was Samson Ryan at Richmond, who is riding the football roller-coaster.
The 206cm 25-year-old, from Toowoomba via Sherwood, Redland and the Lions Academy, played only six AFL games this year for a total of 31 games since he was drafted at pick No.40 in the 2020 COVID draft.
He was delisted by the rebuilding Tigers but quickly attracted interest from several opposition clubs, most notably North Melbourne.
Otherwise, the QTOTY starting line-up was pretty straightforward on AFL performance.
Eight Queenslanders in the Lions premiership side were automatic: Andrews, Dayne Zorko, Will and Levi Ashcroft, Charlie Cameron, Jaspa Fletcher, Ty Gallop and Eric Hipwood.
Likewise, Fremantle’s Corey Wagner, who, at his third club after being cast aside by North Melbourne and Melbourne, played in the AFL Grand Final against his 2015 Lions Academy teammate Hipwood and, at 29, won a two-year contract extension with the minor premiers.
Similarly, Bodhi Uwland, who won the Suns’ best and fairest; teammate Leo Lombard, who finished fourth in the Suns B&F in his first full season; plus Port Adelaide backline stalwart Aliir Aliir and Lions cast-off turned Adelaide star Ben Keays.
Brisbane’s Bruce Reville, Queensland football’s great success story of 12 months ago when he was a member of the Lions’ 2025 flag team, wins a starting spot after being an emergency for the ’26 flag team.
Jed Walter’s 33 goals, iced by his ultra-competitive second half of the year as Ben King transitioned out of the Suns forward line, earned him a spot at full forward beside ex-Suns Academy product turned St Kilda surprise packet Campbell Lake.
Lake was one of the great Queensland football stories. After starting the season at Southport, and deliberately dyeing his hair blonde and wearing bright boots to attract attention, his effort to play 10 games after a Round 13 debut was exceptional.
Settling on five players for the interchange bench was tougher.
Jack Bowes, off to Essendon after playing only nine AFL games with Geelong, finished ninth in voting for the VFL Coaches’ MVP in virtually half a season. A big tick.
Connor Budarick, too, wins a bench spot on the strength of his 16 games for the Bulldogs and the endorsement from coach Luke Beveridge, who spoke of how much they missed the ex-Sun when he was injured.
Completing the bench beside Hammelmann and Murray is Zeke Uwland, who played 17 games in his first season, highlighted by 32 possessions, a goal and a Brownlow Medal vote against Collingwood in Round 12. A star in the making.
There were others stiff to miss out. Like Suns big man Ethan Read, Coleman at the Lions, and ex-Lions Academy midfielder Toby Triffett, who had an excellent season with Williamstown in the VFL.
And if there was a Queensland AFL Rising Star Award, it would go to Hawthorn’s Matt Hill, a one-time Yeppoon junior who made his way into the Hawthorn side in Rounds 17-18 via the Brisbane Broncos and the Melbourne Storm. A remarkable journey that has the Hawks excited for the next chapter.
The coach? That was a simple choice, too, when Adelaide coaching director Murray Davis was a contender for the vacant Essendon AFL coaching job and was approached by the Brisbane Lions to interview for the premiers’ coaching vacancy.
Having decided his future is with the Adelaide Crows, where he is the off-sider to Matthew Nicks, Davis is a true Queensland football coaching product, one of not too many.
Who missed out?
On top of Read, Coleman, Triffett and Hill, there was Brisbane’s Sam Marshall, who is off to St Kilda, injured Suns pair Lachie Weller and Will Graham, and teammate Alex Davies, who has been unable to lock down a regular AFL spot but has been so good at VFL level that he’s on the radar of the Tasmanian Devils.
Also, the younger Suns brigade of Jai Murray, Beau Addinsall, Dylan Patterson, Sam Clohesy, Jake Rogers and Lachie Gulbin; emerging Brisbane gun Dan Annable, whose first season was ruined by injury; and the delisted trio of Bailey Scott (North Melbourne), Oskar Baker (Western Bulldogs) and Ryan (Richmond).