"Bad goal kicking haunts you in Grand Finals." - Craig O'Donoghue - LIVE from Melbourne - 28.09.2026

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Craig O'Donoghue (0:14)

Unbelievable.

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Mark Duffield (1:06)

Yes, Craig O'Donoghue joins us on the show from the West Australian. Just before we introduce and talk to Craig, don't forget, double demerits still apply until midnight Monday for drink or drug driving this long weekend, not wearing a seatbelt or running a red light. You get caught, you could lose your licence twice as fast. Search double demerits. Craig O'Donoghue, welcome.

Craig O'Donoghue (1:31)

I mentioned barracking for freeman or losing a grand final and then losing your licence on the same weekend.

Mark Duffield (1:36)

That would be a bad weekend, Colin.

Craig O'Donoghue (1:38)

It would be a bad weekend.

Mark Duffield (1:41)

So have you made it back from Melbourne yet or are you stuck over there?

Craig O'Donoghue (1:45)

No, I'm still in Melbourne. I fly back later tonight. So I've set up camp at Mum and Dad's place out in Doncaster. And we'll try to ride here amongst the monks, the nieces and nephews churning through the house at different points to come and say good day.

Mark Duffield (1:58)

So I saw your post-match that you did for the West Australian. It's a very good one.

You talked about the significance of the Alex Pearce injury. Talk us through that.

Craig O'Donoghue (2:09)

Yes, I mean, Pearce was playing on Morris for the two and a half quarters that he was on the field and he had Morris under total control and more importantly, he had the back line playing well as well. So when Pearce is on the field, he stops the player, but he also just captains the team so well and keeps everything on track for what they need. So then he comes off and Morris has gone from having three possessions in two and a half quarters, kicking three goals in the last quarter. And when the real pressure was on and they needed that calming voice there, Pearce wasn't there. So I do think that when we reflect on this grand final, not having him out there was just as important as the brilliance that we saw from Will Ashcroft, who just became an icon of the Brisbane Lions Footy Club and should have won a Norm Smith medal and become only the second man along with Dusty to win three of them.

Mark Duffield (2:59)

Well, get back to the Norm Smith medal debate. Let's get an update on Alex. There's optimism yesterday that he may not need surgery. What's the club saying?

Craig O'Donoghue (3:11)

So the club is hopeful that he won't need surgery and it's a partial tear.

Achilles, though, they are such a bad injury. Like, I've had an achilles surgery myself, and I don't know how long it takes to recover from, and you never really feel good for about a couple of years afterwards. So whilst he might get back and play footy next year, he's always gonna feel sore and just susceptible and worried about how the achilles feels. You wake up on a winter's morning and it's not good. So yeah, I hate what he's gonna have to go through for the next few months working through this, whether it's a full rupture or whether it's a partial one, it's still gonna be difficult for him.

Mark Duffield (3:48)

So what was the timeframe for you, Codd, having had the surgery?

Craig O'Donoghue (3:53)

I had a totally different surgery to what he would have.

I just kept on shredding it vertically rather than snapping it. But yeah, it took me a year and a half to recover from that. And we've seen other players who have had the full surgery, like Jared Ruffead, take about a year. So yeah, it takes a long time to get back from it.

Mark Duffield (4:11)

Now, because of the uncertainty as to whether they'll have Alex Pearce or not, there's been a lot of, I guess, cackle about whether they should go after another tall defender and whether they should go after someone, you know, really big like a Sam Taylor from GWS or whether they should try and find a role player that could maybe step in there, like perhaps a Charlie Ballard from Gold Coast or Sam DeConning looks to be a little bit on the outer at Geelong. Alex Turu is looking around at St. Kilda. Do you have any thoughts as to if you were the freeman or dockers list management crew and they've tended to pull the right levers in the last few years, what would you be doing?