Four weeks after it looked like Ty Gallop’s 2026 premiership dream may have been over he will play at the MCG tomorrow looking to complete the quickest journey to a second AFL flag in Queensland football history.
A premiership player in his sixth game when the Lions beat Geelong in the Grand Final last year, Gallop, an unheralded Lions Academy graduate and Kawana Park Eagles junior from the Sunshine Coast, is looking to double up against Fremantle in his 27th game.
Among 13 Queenslanders to have won two premierships none have been even close to the Gallop mark.
Robert Copeland was quickest at 52 games from Will Ashcroft (58), Jaspa Fletcher (68), Jason Dunstall (85) and Clark Keating (94). But for eight others it was a longer wait .. Mal Michael (110), Jason Akermanis (163), Michael Voss (198), David Hale (219), Harris Andrews (239), Charlie Cameron (254), Marcus Ashcroft (293) and Dayne Zorko (304).
All was going smoothly for the 20-year-old Sunshine Coaster. Having played forward in his first season, kicking three goals in the MCG preliminary final win over Collingwood, he had found a new home in defence.
He was outstanding until an off-the-ball incident with Port Adelaide’s Mitch Georgiades in Round 20 saw him incur a three-match suspension.
He returned in the last home-and-away game against Collingwood, but when the full battery of talls were all available for the start of the finals he missed selection.
But after the heavy loss in their first final against Sydney, he was recalled, and has quickly got back to his best. There was never a chance he wasn’t playing this week as he and fellow Queenslanders Eric Hipwood and Levi Ashcroft chase their second flag.
It’s been an inspirational story. The boy from Mountain Creek State High School and Kawana Park Eagles, who debuted for the Lions Reserves in the 2024 VFL Preliminary Final and, playing for Maroochydore, won the 2024 TPIL Lawyers QAFL Rising Star Award.
So, too, is the story of Jaspa Fletcher, who at 22 will play his 95th consecutive AFL game since his debut in Round 13 2023. It’s his fourth grand final and potentially his third premiership.
This one has an odd flavor - it’s against the club where his father Adrian finished his 231-game AFL career with 79 games from 1998-2001. He won the Dockers Best and Fairest in 1999 and captained the club in 2000-01 after earlier stints with Geelong, St Kilda and Brisbane.
A third flag for Fletcher in 95 games would make him quicker to a hat-trick than the seven other Queenslanders to this rare mark. Clark Keating was 106 games, Jason Dunstall 109, Mal Michael 133, Jason Akermanis 188, Michael Voss 223, Hale 236 and Marcus Ashcroft 318.
And if Brisbane wins, Zorko will be 321 games, Charlie Cameron 281 and Harris Andrews 263.
But the Fletcher journey will seem like an eternity in comparison to teammate Will Ashcroft. He’s chasing his third flag in game 59 and, unthinkably, his third Norm Smith Medal in a row.
Hipwood is in catch-up mode, having missed the 2025 premiership through injury. It’s been an unusual journey .. a grand final loss to Collingwood in 2023 and a win over Sydney in 2024 before the disappointment of last year.
Cameron will play his fifth grand final, having also played in 2017 with Adelaide before coming ‘home’.
Even more remarkably, it will be his 31st AFL final overall. Only six players in history have played more – Joel Selwood (40), Michael Tuck (39), Shaun Burgoyne (35), Patrick Dangerfield and Scott Pendlebury (33) and Tom Hawkins (32).
With 61 finals goals, Cameron is poised to break into the top 10. It’s an elite group headed by Gordon Coventry’s extraordinary 111 goals in 31 finals in the 1930s, with Dunstall (78) next best from Jack Titus and Lance Franklin (74), Leigh Matthews (72), Stephen Kernahan and Alastair Lynch (65), Gary Ablett Snr and Doug Wade (64) and Kevin Bartlett and Dick Lee (62).
Eight Queenslanders in the Brisbane grand final side – Andrews, Zorko, Cameron, Hipwood, Fletcher, Gallop and the Ashcroft brothers – is a wonderful thing for Queensland Austrlaian rules football. But it’s not the most.
Last year there were nine, even without the injured Hipwood. Bruce Reville, an emergency this week, and Sam Marshall, who has managed only two games, were others.
In 2024 there were seven – Andrews, Zorko, Cameron, Hipwood, Fletcher, Will Ashcroft and the unlucky Jack Payne, who will watch his second consecutive grand final this year through injury.
Seven Queenslanders were part of the Lions’ 2001-02-03 premiership hat-trick. Voss, Akermanis, Marcus Ashcroft, Mal Michael and Clark Keating played each year, while Robert Copeland played twice and Jamie Charman once.