“My heart breaks for him”: Lions veteran praises courageous McInerney, names “logical” Grand Final replacement

Brisbane Lions veteran Dayne Zorko says he is heartbroken for teammate Oscar McInerney in the wake of his Grand Final disappointment.

The ruckman twice dislocated his left shoulder during his side’s eventual Preliminary Final win over Geelong at the MCG on Saturday night.

As a result he has been ruled out of this Saturday’s decider against Sydney.

Zorko feels for McInerney who has been a central figure for the Lions, not only in 2024, but for the last seven seasons.

He praised the courage of the 30-year-old who came back onto the ground after the initial dislocation in an attempt to play out the game against the Cats.

“It’s absolute heartbreak for Oscar,” he said on SENQ Breakfast.

“When it happened it didn’t look good. I knew he’d come back out, it’s just the character he is. He’s the ultimate team man.

“The second time it went out you felt even more for him. It’s not going to happen for him this year which is extremely disappointing.

“He flew back with us Saturday night. He was in a lot of pain still. He doesn’t show it very much but goodness me, you could sense it. He was in a world of pain.

“For him to get back out there and give us another quarter which meant Joey (Daniher) didn’t have to ruck as long - he’s such a courageous human, one of the most selfless and caring teammates you’ll ever have.

“My heart just absolutely breaks for him. Absolutely there’ll be extra motivation this weekend give how much he means to our group.”

The Lions have two other ruckmen to choose from - Darcy Fort and Henry Smith - with Zorko identifying the former as the logical choice due to his stellar VFL form in the second half of the season.

“Given Darcy’s form over the last eight weeks in the VFL, he was clearly the most dominant ruckman in the competition there for a while,” he added.

“I’m not in match committee but you’d think that’s the logical decision. He’s been our travelling emergency the last few weeks as well.

“We’ll get a lot of work into him this week and make sure he’s ready to go. What an opportunity it is for him.”

The Lions are out to avenge last year’s narrow Grand Final defeat to Collingwood and already plans have been put in place to “eradicate” some shortcomings in the lead-up that might have impacted them on game day.

Among those strategic changes is that the playing group will travel to Melbourne on Wednesday, a day earlier than last year.

“There was a real calmness in the group once the excitement of the change rooms wears off,” he added.

“Last year the excitement of reaching our first Gand Final and overcoming that Preliminary Final hoodoo we’d had. It was a massive sense of excitement which is probably energy-zapping.

“Then the logistics of interstate teams to Melbourne and then family and everyone wanting to come and tickets and everything like that - all that has been a lot calmer this year.

“We’ve experienced it. We’re going to head down a day early to to hopefully eradicate flight delays, which we had last year after a freak storm came through Brisbane. A lot of things went wrong.

“We want to eradicate a few of those issues this year by heading down earlier. We’ll set up camp, families will come later in the week and we’ll prepare to the best of our abilities for a really important game.”

Brisbane is out to win a fourth premiership to add to the three-peat from 2001-2003.

The 2024 AFL Grand Final between the Lions and Swans kicks off at 2:30pm AEST this Saturday.