Gavin Wanganeen and Chris Scott compete for a mark during the 2004 Grand Final. Image: AFL Photos.

BY the time Port Adelaide and Brisbane gave the AFL its first grand final with no Victorian team in 2004 it seemed Australian football would progress from suburban rivalries to national duels. It would indeed live up to its marketing theme as "Australia's Game".

Port Adelaide v Brisbane. Then Sydney v West Coast. Classic battles were played from one side of Australia to another rather than hemmed into a suburban sprawl in Melbourne. These contests that defined the national competition were ultimately settled in grand finals - 2004, 2005, 2006 ... with the MCG filled amid the absence of Victorian rivals.

In Port Adelaide and Brisbane, the AFL could have envisioned Australian football developing a rivalry to match American basketball's long-running grudge duel between the Boston Celtics and Los Angeles Lakers (who were once of Detroit and Minneapolis just as the Lions were originally of Fitzroy).

The two clubs shared a critical point in the growth of the national league in 1997.  Brisbane was reformed by the merger with Fitzroy, a groundbreaking development that has never been repeated (not even with Melbourne and Hawthorn). Port Adelaide rose from suburbia, still the only non-Victorian club to be promoted from a State league.

The start of Port Adelaide-Brisbane storyline on the field was more intense than the Showdown history - the first match, at Football Park, was decided by two points in Port Adelaide's favour. The second and third matches, both at the Gabba, were draws.

There was from 1999 a personal battle between coaches Mark Williams at Port Adelaide and Leigh Matthews based on Matthews' ushering Williams from Collingwood to form the start-up squad with the Brisbane Bears in 1987.

Brett Montgomery marks the ball during the 2004 Grand Final. Image: AFL Photos.

And from the start of the 21st century in 2001 there were intense personal duels on the field that defined players on both sides of the Port Adelaide-Brisbane divide.

As Port Adelaide this weekend returns to the Gabba - where Williams would battle the cricket ground's famed caretaker to get full access to the centre square for training runs - there is one match that stands out while the game is caught in a renewed debate on taggers.

Round 17, 2003. Roger James kicked the winning behind in the 34th minute of the last term to end for Port Adelaide a five-match losing streak at the Gabba - and build hope of Port Adelaide stopping Brisbane's chase of three consecutive AFL flags.

And in the centre of this epic battle at the Gabba was the duel that confirmed Josh Carr was much more than a tagger. He was a first-grade midfielder, as premiership team-mate Kane Cornes recalled last week when he listed his top-10 taggers of his era.

"Josh probably taught me the most out of anyone," said Cornes who rose to an elite tagger from these lessons. "Josh was as competitive as tough and as dogged as there was. He graduated to be a very good midfielder in his own right."

The crowning moment was that Saturday night at the Gabba in late July 2003.
Josh Carr v Michael Voss in the middle.

Carr, 23 disposals and four goals.

Voss, 16 disposals and two goals.

"I sat back and admired the way Josh Carr would take on the game's best players," Cornes told portadelaidefc.com.au this week. "And he would also win his own ball as well.

Josh Carr's skills were vital in wins over Brisbane, reflects Kane Cornes. Image: AFL Photos.

"Josh made his opponents accountable when the ball was going the other way. Most of the game's midfielders are not great on the defensive side. They do not show respect for a tagger's ability to win the ball and take the game the other way.

"Josh Carr would expose that.

"That night with those four goals against Brisbane - and Voss - was as good a game from a tagger as I have ever seen.

"We were at the Gabba where we faced a hostile environment. It was a sold-out game. And Michael Voss was at the height of his powers as a midfielder. We were facing an intimidating side. A really intimidating side.

"You would go onto the Gabba and be greeted by Jonathan Brown telling you that if you came off the line he would be waiting to clean you up. You have the Scott brothers not needing an excuse to clean you up. And there was talent from one end of the ground to the other.

"And Josh Carr was not fazed by any of it. He was not afraid. And he was not going to step back. He took it on, particularly when it was physical."

The Port Adelaide-Brisbane rivalry was intense from the start and peaked in the 2004 grand final.

The 2004 Grand Final was the culmination of years of the close rivalry. Image: AFL Photos.

"It was a rivalry built on great contests and great games," recalled Cornes. "No matter if it was Football Park or the Gabba, we were in big games with big consequences - minor premierships on the line when it was important to finish top to avoid missing out on a home preliminary final (as Brisbane did in 2004 with a preliminary final at the MCG rather than the Gabba against Geelong).

"And then we get to the 2004 grand final where it all spills over. Chad Cornes and Jonathan Brown. Darryl Wakelin and Alastair Lynch. Simon Black copped two games at the tribunal for his hit on me. 

"That grand final was the epic finish of our intense battle of that time. We had to win to avoid having nothing to show for our dominance of home-and-away football. We were desperate. They were wanting their fourth consecutive premiership. 

"We won ... the rest is history."

History continues this week with Port Adelaide making its 20th visit to the Gabba (five wins, two draws, 12 losses) to deal with a Brisbane unit again eyeing consecutive premierships. Carr will be there again - this time as Port Adelaide's midfield coach seeking to contain the constant threat of Lachie Neale, from the tactical board rather than on the field as he did that night in 2003 against Voss.