A MORSEL of a pre-season idea was fleshed out for Brisbane on Saturday night, helping it to turn the tide and march into a sixth Grand Final.
With League best and fairest Ebony Marinoff having a major influence at half-time with 16 disposals, Lions coach Craig Starcevich needed to turn the tap off.
So, he turned to Jade Ellenger.
Cathy Svarc has been the team's traditional tagger over many years, while captain Bre Koenen did it on the game's biggest stage in 2023 to slow down Jas Garner and win the medal as the Grand Final's best player to lead her team to a flag.
This time around, it was Ellenger though, a player that has been thrown around from half-back to the wing and now on-ball if the coaching staff needs it.
In an experimental pre-season game against Richmond, the 24-year-old ran with Mon Conti. Starcevich saw enough that he wheeled out the same move against Marinoff in the second half of the nailbiting round five win at Brighton Homes Arena.
The next time we saw it was in the preliminary final.
"We throw the magnets around, and it's something I've done before," Ellenger told AFL.com.au.
"She's a great runner, I love playing off her. I don't play on-ball a lot and it wasn't necessarily a tagging role, it was an accountability role to let our mids go to work.
"I was happy to do it."
Although Marinoff still contributed in the second half with another 14 touches, the damage was less, and cumulatively Brisbane started to overwhelm the Crows in the middle of the ground.
Ally Anderson, Belle Dawes, Courtney Hodder and Ellenger all started to win a lot of the ball, while Svarc continued her brilliant finals series with a huge impact at half-forward.
Ellenger gave the home team the lead during the third quarter when she swooped on an errant Chelsea Biddell handball courtesy of Sophie Conway's pressure.
She is quick, has good endurance and a defensive mindset and believes that combination might have been the impetus to try her in the run-with role.
"I love it. I love that I'm trusted to take on such a big role like that," Ellenger said.
"It's like a privilege to play in the midfield and then to play on a player like that. If they do want to send me to someone, I'll take it, I like the responsibility.
"It offers so much flexibility and the last season or two we've been so much more adaptable … we can throw the magnets anywhere and people will perform in those positions."
Ahead of facing North Melbourne in a second straight decider, Ellenger said Brisbane had learned plenty from its 44-point round one mauling.
"That game burns inside of us because we haven’t been beaten that badly before. It wasn't the way we wanted to play," she said.
"We learned that we need to be hungrier at the source. We need to stop it before they can get it into their talls and their smalls, they've got strengths all over the ground.
"Pressure kills in finals and pressure wins finals.
"There's so many things we want to fix from round one, but on the flipside of that, there's so many things they would want to fix from the Grand Final last year.
"It's going to be a very heated game."
