West Coast drew on all their heart, head and guts to beat Collingwood by five points in an epic AFL grand final.
The Eagles rallied from 29 points down late in the first quarter, and then two goals behind early in the last, to win 11.13 (79) to 11.8 (74) and claim their fourth premiership in front of 100,022 fans at the MCG.
Saturday's belter of a grand final was the closest since the 2010 draw between Collingwood and St Kilda.
West Coast led for only nine minutes, but it was enough to exorcise the demons of the 2015 grand final shocker against Hawthorn.
A dejected Magpies after their 2018 AFL Grand Final loss. Source: AAP
With scores level at three-quarter time, Eagles coach Adam Simpson had a simple message for his players.
"We've been having a bit of a theme about head, heart and gut," he said.
"The heart's the love of the game, we all love this game, and the gut is about the last quarter.
"The instructions weren't too much outside of that and I don't know what to feel ... honestly, I'm blown away."
It is Simpson's first flag as a coach and he is the third-straight former Alastair Clarkson assistant from Hawthorn to take his own team to a premiership, following Luke Beveridge (Western Bulldogs) and Damien Hardwick (Richmond).
Luke Shuey won the Norm Smith Medal as best afield, racking up 34 disposals and eight clearances as well as a game-high 19 contested possessions.
With two minutes left and Collingwood leading by two points, Liam Ryan took a big mark on the wing and found Dom Sheed deep in a forward pocket.
Sheed nearly played on, but the Eagles onballer went back and calmly drop punted the match-winning goal.
In the frenetic moments that followed, Eagles forward Jack Darling dropped a sitter of a mark in their goalsquare.
But it did not matter - the ball was rushed through for a behind and Shuey then took the relieving mark that sealed victory.
While it was an echo of Darling's woeful dropped mark in the '15 grand final, he was much better this time with six marks in the third term.
The last term was full of high drama, with West Coast missing a string of scoring chances.
West Coast overcame the loss of star players Nic Naitanui (knee reconstruction) and Andrew Gaff (suspension) this season while the flag comes a year after Simpson was under pressure to keep his job.
West Coast's Josh Kennedy and Magpies Jordan De Goey kicked three goals apiece, while Taylor Adams and Tom Langdon were best for Collingwood.
The Magpies were as shattered as the Eagles were jubilant.
Collingwood coach Nathan Buckley spent several minutes post-match conforting team runner Alex Woodward.
The former Hawthorn player collided with Jaidyn Stephenson at 20 minute in the third term, enabling Elliot Yeo to take an uncontested mark.
Yeo goalled to put the Eagles in front for the first time since early in the first quarter.
Buckley, like Simpson, felt numb post-match.
"Everyone that is saying 'well done' is having to sort of put a rider on it because we didn't get the result," Buckley said.
Collingwood would have equalled Carlton and Essendon with the most AFL premierships on 16 had they won.
Saturday is the latest chapter in the Magpies' torturous history of grand final near-misses.
But they lost no friends on Saturday.
They have been outstanding after finishing 13th last season, when Buckley came close to losing his job.
When Collingwood were dominating early, Eagles key defenders Jeremy McGovern and Tom Barrass were immense.
McGovern starred despite having to go to hospital a week ago because of internal bleeding caused by a hip pointer.
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