At half-time in the 2023 AFL grand final Lincoln McCarthy had kicked two brilliant goals and Keidean Coleman was on track to win the Norm Smith Medal.
But the Brisbane Lions lost that decider by four points to Collingwood and that pair left empty-handed.
Three seasons on and the club is on the cusp of a third successive title and set to face Fremantle at the MCG on Saturday.
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Yet thanks to injuries and, more recently, the Lions’ tremendous depth and versatility, that luckless duo are without a title and set to again spectate.
“I owe it to them to go out and play with massive effort and do it for them,” Jarrod Berry said before the team travelled to Melbourne on Wednesday.
“It’ll be a firecracker for us.”
McCarthy, 32 and re-signed in the rookie draft on a one-year deal, will likely be an emergency on Saturday.
While initially tried in the backline as another small defence option, livewire Conor McKenna’s re-emergence as a game-breaking small forward has limited McCarthy to just eight games this season.
And there is likely no room in Brisbane’s dynamic defence for Coleman or fan favourite Bruce Reville, who won a flag last year.
“It’s a credit to them, because they handle themselves so well and you wouldn’t know they’re battling behind the scenes,” Berry said.
“It gives the guys with the opportunity a bit of a kick, and I know how much it hurts.”
Berry missed last year’s decider when he dislocated his shoulder in the preliminary final while Eric Hipwood also watched on as he recovered from a second knee reconstruction.
“That (first one) made last year a lot easier and I had Linc and Kiddy to lean on for advice,” Hipwood, who kicked a screamer in the Lions’ 2024 grand final win, said.
“And I was still able to see my best mates win a final. I was still so happy.
“There’s always a fairytale and always a hard-luck story, but we all know it takes much more than just the 23 who play on the day.”
Dylan McLaren experienced the opposite to Lincoln McCarthy’s past four years during Brisbane’s early 2000s success.
He played only 10 games across the 2001-03 premiership years and then became a regular in 2004, playing in the Lions’ grand final defeat to Port Adelaide.
Several players who were on Hawthorn’s list for the entirety of their 2013-15 premiership hat-trick missed out entirely.
Brendan Whitecross in fact missed out on four flags, having not yet made his debut when the Hawks won the 2008 grand final in his first season.
He then suffered an ACL injury in a 2012 qualifying final but slotted back into the side from June 2013 — only to suffer another ACL injury in the preliminary final.
He missed all of 2014 and only made four appearances in 2015.
Whitecross played in a VFL grand final defeat in 2015 but finally got a flag in Hawks colours in the 2018 VFL grand final.
Jonathan Ceglar, then a developing ruckman, was a surprise mainstay in Hawthorn’s AFL team through the middle of the 2014 season but was dropped for the grand final.
He started the 2015 campaign in the side before being dropped in July, making just one more appearance in August before being overlooked for the run home.
Jed Anderson made just 10 AFL appearances across 2013-15 before leaving for North Melbourne, while Sam Grimley only received a senior call-up in 2013.
— with 7NEWS
