Celebrations around the end of the season, in the main professional football codes, moved north in 2025 with the success of teams from Brisbane.
Dr Lee Duffield has provided a compilation of the facts and some commentary on the winding-up of competitions.
SUNDAY 5 OCTOBER saw Brisbane Broncos NRL teams win both the women’s and men’s Grand Finals — one week after the Brisbane Lions men’s did the same in the AFL.
In the National Rugby League Women’s (NRLW), the Broncos blunted an up-to-then unbeaten season for the reigning Premiers, Sydney Roosters, defeating them 22-18.
The NRL’s official publication was highly satisfied with the outcome of its decision to put on the women’s Grand Final a few hours ahead of the men’s event in Sydney.
The game was ‘epic’, it said, the Lions achieving a ‘dramatic come-from-behind victory’ after trailing 12-0 at halftime.
That was certainly true in the eyes of beholders, including 40,000 who turned up at Accor Stadium, Olympic Park, by half-time.
Stirring up the crowds
The stadium became full, at just over 80,000, for the NRL stand-off between the Broncos and Melbourne Storm.
The absence of a Sydney club did not put even a dent in ticket sales. Thousands of Broncos supporters were seized by the mood, after seeing their team upset the three-time Premiers, Penrith, in Brisbane the weekend before and booked the trip south. Storm persons did the same but did not appear to get the same numbers or make the same noise.
A theory exists that many Sydney League fans decided to suspend old rivalries over State of Origin (the last insult being the Maroons’ great win on 9 July), but did not put aside aversion to the city of Melbourne — and so pretended to be Queenslanders for the night. Real Queenslanders painted Brisbane red at night and kept up the drought-breaker celebrations during the Monday pubic holiday (actually proclaimed in honour of King Charles, not the Broncos), when the teams got home.
The big game
As summarised by commentators, the Broncos, labelled “come-back specialists”, actually went to an early lead; then there was a devastating come-back by Melbourne Storm, favoured in the betting, the so-called “Grand Final specialists” who are usually there and often win; who then succumbed to a come-back by the Broncos against their come-back; the game tense and close to the last three minutes, ending 26-22.
In the players’ on-field analyses after full time, Cameron Munster from the Storm blamed some mistakes on his own side, but thought the Broncos had more fire. “We gave them too much ball early, and they were hungry,” he said.
Ben Hunt had spent the day getting it thrown up at him on television, that his sensational knock-on at the end of the 2015 Grand Final had cost the Broncos the Premiership. This time, after a pivotal performance, he was brought staggering off the field in the closing stages, semi-conscious, after a hard knock. He said, getting the victory had been “years of hard work” which had been “hard years for supporters” also.
The Broncos last won in 2006. The 2025 Grand Final cannot be recounted without mentioning the dynamic, tackle-beating, goal-kicking, incisive fullback Reece Walsh; trademark painted nails correct for nail-biting finishes on the field; winner of the Clive Churchill Medal.
AFL Grand Final
The Australian Football League (AFL — Australian Rules) produced as big, or an even bigger, event at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on 27 September, where 90,000 supporters packed the stands, to see the Brisbane Lions defeat Geelong Cats, 18.14.(122) to 11.9.(75).
The Lions were playing for their second consecutive premiership cup and flag, but Geelong were being called outright favourites based on the season’s performances.
Getting there this time had required that the Lions, who’d been placed third, defeat the Gold Coast Suns, entering the finals for the first time, then Collingwood.
Trivia and other observations
- Two out-of-town teams played in both Grand Finals: in Sydney, which is the NRL “hub” with nine of the 17 teams; and the same in Melbourne, the AFL “hub” with nine out of 18. They are still not 100 per cent national codes; occasionally, claims are made to have Grand Finals outside the two “hubs”, but consideration is always put off; they are bigger business centres for sports.
- Speaking of business, how much of the Broncos’ success in 2025 would be the outcome of having a big club, serving a big population, even with the new Dolphins franchise on Brisbane’s suburban fringe? The club has been building up advanced sports medicine and training facilities, and has an extremely active leagues club. It’s the only NRL club listed on the stock exchange, enjoying an “uptick” since last week; some shares might cost you. When it comes to developing players and staff, money matters. Watch future performances to see if the size of the Broncos' business, as well as the size of its folkloric community backing, might come through in more dominance on the field.
- Speaking of show business, audiences in the stands roared high approval of the AFL for promoting the entertainment segment, the veteran American rapper Snoop Dogg, plus a small army of back-up singers and dancers. He revived a duet performance with Jessica Mauboy — her song ‘Get ‘Em Girl’.
- Speaking of another kind of business, the Grand Final bonanzas of the two major codes will have fed into some staggering outlays on online sports betting. It takes up over 40 per cent of punters’ wagering, the country’s total spend on gambling ranging above $245 billion annually. You have fun, the pain of life goes away, but you and others around you might have to pay — a lot. Australia is being rated one of the highest, or the world’s highest, for per capita spend on games of chance.
- Women’s competitions have been getting stronger, commanding bigger crowds for major matches and the players getting better paid. The NRL still only has ten clubs participating; all of the AFL clubs have a female team. The AFL women’s competition is staggered against the men’s table, with a Grand Final set for 29 November.
- Are sports injuries getting worse? By definition, high-level competition means pressure for always-improving performance, to build on the brilliance and skill. It works against the growing evidence of danger, as with long-term brain damage, and care for players, as with third-party doctors on scene and mandatory Head Injury Assessments. In the NRL competition reported here, several teams struggled to the finals with injury problems, especially the eventual premiers, the Brisbane Broncos, who’d lost three players in one game with hamstring injuries and on the night had two star performers, Ben Hunt, and the captain, Adam Reynolds, taken out injured.
Spectator sport gets caught up in social change, maybe, mostly, as a great distraction, providing a few splendid hours of high emotion, away from bad news and real-world emotions with bad consequences. Let nothing stand in the way of a good game, a well-earned win and a party; count up costs also and think about what might have to be done better.
Rugby Union and A League
On 5 October, when the Broncos were fighting it out with Storm, the NSW Waratahs scored a Grand Final victory in the inaugural Super Rugby AUS competition, defeating Western Force 32-26, in Perth. This domestic Rugby Union competition is modest, with just two other teams, Queensland Reds and A.C.T. Brumbies.
Rugby famously has more of an international focus. The four clubs are part of a Super Rugby Pacific competition, also with seven other teams from Fiji and New Zealand and the Moana Pasifika club drawing players from several Pacific locations.
In international competition, the Wallabies suffered another defeat by the NZ All Blacks 28-14, on Saturday 4 October, in Perth, site of a good Rugby weekend, if not so good for home teams. The game was part of the Rugby Championships, all Southern hemisphere, with South Africa on top of the ladder, ahead of New Zealand, Australia and Argentina.
In the “Beautiful Game” of football, known as soccer, the Australian A League plays through summer, with week one scheduled for 17 October. For the record, the League had its Grand Final on 31 May, a local derby in Melbourne, Melbourne City defeating Melbourne Victory 1-0.
Football also being international, heavy concentration has been on Australian successes in the qualifiers for the two major events of 2026, the Women’s Asian Cup (read Matildas), to be played in Australia, beginning on 1 March; and the quadrennial World Cup, men’s (read Socceroos), in mid-year, to be hosted jointly, and maybe uncomfortably in the present era, by Canada, Mexico and the United States.
Amongst Dr Lee Duffield’s vast journalistic experience, he has served as ABC's European correspondent. He is also an esteemed academic and member of the editorial advisory board of Pacific Journalism Review and elected member of the University of Queensland Senate.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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