Sometimes the numbers are misleading, or tell only one part of a bigger, more complicated story.

And sometimes they sum things up so perfectly you can get a clear picture of events from the data alone.

Brisbane’s utter domination of the Western Bulldogs at stoppages on Friday night is manifest in the data. The Lions ended with 18 extra clearances over the Dogs, 17 of them in a dominant first half in which they ran riot in any key stat you could care to name. Simultaneously, they were +19 in contested possessions at the main break, with nearly double the centre clearances (9-5), and unsurprisingly, a five goals to two advantage in goals from stoppages.

What was most remarkable of all is that this was a midfield thrashing of a team that just doesn’t get pantsed like this. Only four times under Luke Beveridge, and once since 2018, have the Dogs conceded a worse clearance differential than the one they faced at half time alone.

Having been the league’s best at scoring from stoppages, averaging 12.2 more per game than their opposition all season long, to be 19 behind at half time was an equally abrupt and brutal change of pass for an on-ball brigade used to more often than not having its way.

Little wonder the Lions were 34 points up, an all but unassailable lead, at half time with their midfield on top so comprehensively.

There were mitigating circumstances, as their usually are when the flogging is this severe – the Dogs played and acted like a team fast running out of petrol and limping towards its bye against a refreshed and rejuvenated Lions team coming off their second, and the loss of Ed Richards robbed their midfield of both speed and defensive grunt that not even the return of a rusty Tom Liberatore could compensate for.

But this was still a seismic performance from the Lions’ midfield, Lachie Neale especially: and having fallen from among the league leaders for stoppages in 2023 (first for centre and total clearances and second for scores from them) to thoroughly middle of the road in 2024 (15th, third and ninth respectively), this was the strongest sign yet that the reigning grand finalists’ season is far from unrecoverable as it heads into a crucial second stanza.

At their best last year, Brisbane’s midfield worked as a well-oiled machine: the defensively minded Josh Dunkley would block or impede the opposition’s most dangerous stoppage player, giving Lachie Neale free reign to attack the footy on his way to a second Brownlow, while a revolving support cast including Hugh McCluggage, Will Ashcroft, Jarryd Lyons and Zac Bailey made opposition planning for their mix an ever-changing nightmare.

On Friday night, Jarrod Berry was given the job from the very first bounce to curb Marcus Bontempelli at stoppages especially – Dunkley, meanwhile, went mano e mano with either Tom Liberatore or Adam Treloar, using his sizeable size and strength to continually body the star Dogs pair away from dangerous space around the contest.

Notably, Berry was far from as assertive as Dunkley is at the stoppage itself on Bontempelli, but his role was twofold: a speedier customer than he’s given credit for, Chris Fagan will back him to catch up to the champion Bulldog in the event he gets hands on the ball, with the idea to pressure, tackle and harass him into being unable to use the ball with his usual effectiveness, while also keeping himself open as an attacking target should the ball come the Lions’ way.

Dunkley, meanwhile, ensures a neutral contest with the Dogs’ secondary midfielder, and allows for a mismatch, with Neale opposed to the younger and significantly less experienced Ryley Sanders. It doesn’t work out here, but in shunting the Dog closer towards the stoppage, Neale is creating plenty of space for one of his trademark plays: nipping out the back of stoppages to give a handpass to a running Lions half-back to drive the ball into attack.

At the above stoppage, it’s Berry who reads where the play is going quicker than anyone else: he’s onto Tim English’s secondary tap in a flash, gathering the loose ball and ignoring an oncoming Neale to hack the footy forward.

It’s one of four clearances Berry has to his name at half time. Bontempelli? One. Neale, meanwhile, has racked up seven, to go with 20 disposals.

Add to that the odd bonus clearance from Berry receiving two free kicks on Liberatore, who was ultra-aggressive in trying to stand up for his skipper and prevent him being suffocated, and the unsung Lion clearly won that duel, and handsomely.

The reigning Brownlow Medallist is a fascinating watch at stoppages: so much is made of how Collingwood, and in latter years Richmond, covered defensively to let their superstars in Nick Daicos and Dustin Martin run their own race, and the Lions do something similar to let Neale singlemindedly hunt the footy.

His fall – going from 7.9 clearances a game last year to 6.1 this year – from his Brownlow-winning 2023 has been as key a reason as any in Brisbane taking steps backward in 2024, but he was back to prime effectiveness against a Dogs midfield that backed themselves to win the contest without needing to put much time or effort into shutting him down, and paid a heavy price for their inability to do so.

The first centre bounce of the third quarter exemplified the two teams’ different attitudes towards stoppages: the Dogs set up to allow all three of their stars in Bontempelli, Treloar and Liberatore a chance to win the clearance, while for the Lions it’s a defence first set-up for two of them in Dunkley and Berry, with Neale set free to do as he pleases.

Adam Treloar lines up next to Neale at the bounce, the man who has torn them apart all first half, and the moment the ball is in the air runs off him to hunt the ball, with nary a token arm across his chest to impede him.

Berry and Dunkley, meanwhile, set up in a pincer formation around Bontempelli, with Dunkley on one side and Berry the other: if the Bont wins the footy, he’ll be hard-pressed to even get a handball out before being swamped.

Oscar McInerney is no one’s idea of an elite ruckman, but his strategy is simple: hit the ball in the general vicinity of Neale if you can. He does, the ball bobbles around momentarily, and only a rare fumble prevents Neale from taking the ball away.

Considering it happened mere seconds in game time from Neale snatching a forward 50 stoppage away and goalling right on the half time siren, that lack of attention into stopping the Lions’ premier clearance-winner spoke volumes. The Lions wouldn’t have been caught dead giving Bontempelli anywhere near that level of freedom.

This isn’t the first time the Dogs have struggled to win hands on the ball at the coalface of late – Nick Daicos set an AFL record for first possessions one game ago – but while Luke Beveridge was able to minimise the impact of those touches by sweating on the Magpies Daicos was giving the ball to, Neale was too clever by half to allow him to rack up the numbers he did.

There are few if any better stoppage players in the game than the Lions’ number 9, with the work he does to find paths from heavy congestion into open space elite: for a man not overly blessed with leg speed, he shoots through traffic to the outside like Marlin and Dory bouncing on jellyfish in Finding Nemo; and his mastery of the new holding the ball crackdown was evidenced in his ability to draw tacklers to him and still find a way to get handpasses clear to suddenly wide-open teammates.

Whether the Dogs made any moves to curb his influence is anyone’s guess, because so complete was his midfield performance that Beveridge could easily have made tweaks to try and stop him, and they just didn’t work because his ball-winning skills are so good and the Lions so well-drilled at getting him the space he needs.

On the other hand, only occasionally did Berry lapse in his role on Bontempelli, and mostly they were to do with the Dogs throwing different stoppage patterns at him: in the instance where the Bulldogs captain kicks the second of his three goals, he set up substantially wider of the stoppage than could have been predicted, essentially as a spare forward.

Having largely been instructed to only hamper Bontempelli at the stoppages directly, he gets sucked in and leaves his man free over the top for a quick snap and a goal.

The Bulldogs are a team that rely on stoppage control to win games: no team is better than they are at scoring from clearances compared to their opponents this season, while they’re bang average from every other source

The Lions managed to not only clamp down almost entirely on their opponents’ biggest strength, but turn what has been an area of mediocrity for them in 2024 into a powerful weapon of their own. Make that a regular thing, especially if Neale has found top form again, and a season that looked shot heading into their bye might have a whole lot more life in it than we thought.