“I thought we were in a bit of trouble early. Melbourne were all over us,probably a bit fortunate they didn’t kick straight. Then we clicked into gear in the second quarter and were in the game at half-time,which gave our group some confidence.”

Melbourne had twice thrashed the Lions this season,most recently in round 23. Fagan said his team had allowed themselves to be distracted by a war of words surrounding that match. Regrouping to play and beat Richmond in last week’s elimination final,they had resolved to narrow their focus. Now they are in a preliminary final.

“It’s a remarkable turnaround in two or three weeks,” Fagan said. “It goes to show sport[is] fantastic,isn’t it?”

Not so fantastic for Melbourne,with Goodwin saying they were trying to fix issues that were arising in the back half of the season when they failed to cash in on their momentum early in games and left the door open for the opposition.

“We tried to address it on the run throughout the season. We weren’t able to do that to the level where we could get results,” Goodwin said. “In finals,it’s funny,your vulnerabilities find you.”

Brisbane has an appalling record at the MCG and a poor recent finals record,but Fagan said both had been overplayed.

“Some good teams play at the MCG,so it’s not that easy to win here and we don’t play here that often,” he said. “We’re lucky we’ve had three goes in the last nine or 10 weeks. It probably helped us.

“We were getting a bad rap for our finals record. The truth is we lost one game by a point and another game by three points. A whisker away from two more prelims. I don’t see those as bad losses. I’ve always had faith in this group that we could find a way.”

Fagan praised the games of Eric Hipwood,who had to step up after the late withdrawal of Joe Daniher,and stand-in ruckman Darcy Fort,as well Jarrod Berry,who moved onto Clayton Oliver at half-time and played a decisive role.

Fagan said Berry had texted him last weekend asking to play on Oliver. Fagan decided initially to stick with Plan A — Dev Robertson — but switched at the long break.

“It was a very important move and I won’t take credit for it,” Fagan said. “Cam Bruce,who joined our coaching staff this year,suggested it,forcefully,and I took his advice. It ended up being a great move.”

Fagan said his team would relish the challenge of playing a rested and in-form Geelong. However,Berry might have a nervous wait as the match review officer assesses an incident where he appeared to run his hand across Oliver’s face with a mark left near Oliver’s eye.

The Lions’ Lincoln McCarthy also appeared to mock Melbourne’s Harrison Petty near the end of the match for crying after he was verbally sledged during their previous encounter at the Gabba.

“We’ll have our work cut out,but we’ll come with the same attitude we came with tonight and give it our best shot,” Fagan said.

“Generally speaking,we’ve had close games the last couple of years. We’re starting to be more competitive against[Geelong]. We’ll need to be,they’re in great shape.”

Fagan also pre-announced the birth of Daniher’s daughter in Brisbane. “We get a fresh Joey Daniher next week and we had a good win tonight,” he said.

“You couldn’t get a better day than that,could you?”

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