GingerGreatness
Bigfooty Skulker
“Then close your eyes and tap your heels together three times. And think to yourself ‘There’s no place like home’” ~ the Good Witch of the North.
There’s no place like home.
A phrase accompanied by curse words 12 months ago, suddenly sound divine.
And when Dorothy finally woke up at home and looked around, she professed her love for her family and friends. And her joy was accepting of her family and life, even though she’d returned from over the rainbow to a sepia toned world, absent of all the colour, characters and magic of Oz. I’m not going to lie - if this ‘go home’ stuff keeps up, I fear that we’ll all wake up in a footy world that is pretty much sepia toned too - but - because it’s in our favour for once and because Beama’s clicking of heels and thinking resulted in nothing short of a trade week adventure, for now just say it with me - oh, Auntie Em, there’s no place like home.
Of course, not unlike Kansas, home has had a few cyclones about the place in the off-season, property damage, personal challenges and hard times. But this week, footy fans get to savour the experience of starting a new adventure, a new chapter, a new beginning, whether it be live at the Gabba or, fittingly enough, from our homes.
I say a new chapter not to distance the past, but to signify change - the new faces - the faces that have gone - the return of an iconic emblem to where it belongs. Changes that only make the upcoming season all the more intriguing, exciting and frankly, remarkable, considering where we have been. No longer the butt of the ‘world of pain’ style predictions of last year (thanks Lloydy), I can’t recall an off-season quite like the one we’ve just experienced, the go-home factor working against the tide at trade week, but more generally, a positive story or prediction around almost every corner.
When the new pieces of the puzzle are added, what picture will it make? IMO that would be the question most Lions members and fans cannot wait to discover. With the start of the season now upon us, we not only get to see the answer start to unfold, but we also get the long awaited opportunity to physically rally and support our club, win, lose or draw.
In other words, ‘tis Christmas Eve for footy fans - and there’s Round 1 carolling to do, stockings to stuff, and homes to deck out in maroon, blue and gold. And to continue this board’s tradition, for whatever it’s worth, the Round 1 preview is accompanied by my admittedly ordinary attempt at a sizzle trailer, which if nothing else, is a bit of visual bubblegum and general nonsense which hopefully gets a wry smile or two. So without further ado, lets get on with it. For those not inclined to indulge, head straight on down to the preview below. For those inclined to check it out though, turn the volume up and I hope you enjoy the ride...
Welcome back.
Sheesh, twelve and a half minutes - almost as long and drawn out as the off-season, really.
Anywho, on with the preview…
Let me stand next to your fire.
A new captain and All Australian leads the Lions into this season, with the 2015 Lions fixture pegged by many as reasonable and by any standard, fairer than last year’s draw. A lot of Sunday games, sure, but 1 trip to Perth, 3 x 6 day breaks and 3 of the first 4 games at home bodes well for progress, and if nothing else, quite a few Sunday afternoon beverage sessions in front of the footy.
Kicking things off at the Gabba is a bonus (the first time that’s happened since 2011 against Fremantle) - as has been the pre-season, the playing group staying relatively local (Burpengary, Coffs and Metricon) with those travel demands seeming timid compared to some of the more nomadic off-seasons the club has faced in recent years (in the absence of the Gabba being available).
Speaking of travel though and given this week’s opposition, I might as well bring up the age old debate (although I’m no expert in it) - but it goes something like:
Point: Collingwood barely travel.
Counter-point: When they do they have a good track record, so who cares?
Applying that here, it tends to stack up at the Gabba at least, in that the last occasion the Lions beat the Pies at home was Round 10, 2010 (so, the Fev game - the Pies winning the flag that year of course) and before that, Round 2, 2008. That said, recent fixtures haven’t pitted these two clubs against each other too often and of the past 5 starts, the win loss column is 3:2 in favour of Collingwood.
To delve a bit further into the recent past, the last start at the Gabba was 2013’s Friday night fizzer, with a Cloke-less Magpies unit trouncing the Lions by 49 points, leading from start to finish, with Swan racking up 36 touches by the end of the night (and 3 brownlow votes). The Lions were without Brown, Merrett, Rockliff and Leuenberger that night and with Hanley being Macaffer’ed out of the game, the Lions barely gave a yelp for their #bringitback-flyer-holding faithful. The following year at the G was nearly a converse picture though and a pretty memorable night from a Lions perspective - the Lions delivering a 67 point margin of a wrecking ball to the Pies’ fading final hopes, Rockliff picking up 43 touches and Zorko 36 (with two goals and the 3 brownlow votes). Much like the Lions the year before, the Pies injury toll that game can’t be overlooked, their being reduced to 1 bench player by the end of the night, including Cloke going down early in the game. On the flip-side again though, the Lions’ outs that game included Rich, Leuenberger and Brown.
So in short - the last 2 results have been injury and ’outs’ riddled floggings, one going one way, one going the other. I’d like to say that the round 1 fixture is the footy gods’ way of finally having an even contest between the two sides without injury issues, but while it’s true that each club’s list is quite different to what they have been previously, each club still has injury related concerns this week, which I’ll get to in a minute.
In the meantime, all that I can draw from recent history is that the battle of the midfields have been landslides for one or the other. Looking ahead to this game, with Mcaffer still out (recovering from an ACL) and no designated Lions tagger, it’s ‘pick your poison’ time for both coaches. Can’t help but feel Crisp will play a defensive role on Beams, with Bucks backing his troops otherwise - narrowing the risk to Rockliff/Zorko biting again; or Swann/Pendlebury getting off the chain from Leppa’s perspective. I say ‘pick your poison’ as there’s still Redden and Christensen to contend with on one side; Sidebottom and Varcoe on the other. Greenwood’s ankle injury and Hanley’s hip operation sure do sour things, but there’s still plenty of salt and pepper to put on this midfield steak.
Well maybe I’m just thinking that the rooms are all on fire.
Pre-season form wise, the Magpies are hard to predict. An impressive win against the Hawks, a narrow loss to the Blues, and a 10 goal loss to the Dogs - the win against the back-to-back champs being the real prize there. Scratch match or not, the Hawks win can’t be sneezed at, NASA still running calculations on the final margin of the Hawks v Lions pre-season game last year. Looking at the game itself though, Collingwood fielded a Cloke-less, Swan-less and Pendlebury-less side who displayed very fast ball movement; White beat Frawley; and Karnezis bobbed up and showed the prowess as a forward that many Lions fans raved about a few years back (with 3 goals). As a bonus, there may be nothing more exciting in February than seeing a first year player look the goods at senior level and the pick 5/De Goey excitement appears justified for that reason alone.
The Pies followed their win with a 7 point loss to the Blues and while the game seemed to hose down some of the Karnezis predictions, at the end of the day, it was the first competitive hit-out for Pendlebury, Swann, Cloke and Blair (Sidebottom didn’t play), in a team beaten by not much more than a kick. Crisp garnered a bit of praise after the game too, and being a Crisp fan at his time here, I don’t think it’s too out of school to say he’s delivered the output most expected of him in our colours, with disposals in the low teens (roughly - he was sub in the Dogs game, but put in 6 tackles with only 35% game time).
On the other side of the fence, the Lions went undefeated in the pre-season, the only team to do so. That said, the win against St Kilda was talked down as a failure, but for mine, you needn’t look past the 7.16 scoreline to know that the main thing missing was finish up forward. Otherwise, the Lions have fielded very, very strong line-ups during the off-season, born no doubt out of necessity, Coach Leppitsch wanting the new look structures to gel as quickly as possible. It’s really been a stark contrast to last year’s pre-season, where most Lions fans were reaching for their footy record to work out which new kid was who. That said, not unlike Collingwood, De Goey-like-first year-February-fever broke out for new acquisitions Jaden McGrath (pick 73) and Liam Dawson (academy, pick 44 overall), both of whom not only looked comfortable, but dangerous in front of goal. 2015 senior debuts beckon for both.
Don’t think though that the Lions’ ‘undefeated’ preseason means everything is awesome, in that a strong line up didn’t overcome an Ablett-less and O’Meara-less Suns outfit and went without scoring a major for an entire half that game. For a while there, our ‘A-grade’ midfield was getting done, even if the Suns looked to have an extra man at the contest for extended periods. Undefeated or not, the side is very much a work in progress and while I’ve no doubt that the sky’s the limit, Rome wasn’t built in a day either.
Sleep now in the fire.
While it’s easy to get caught up in a ‘battle of the trades’ type angle with this game, there’s a few more layers that are worth pondering.
From a Lions perspective, one layer is how the Merrett back/forward/back/forward set up will play out, now that Sauce is back at full-back. It’s a no-brainer that his duel with Cloke will be a key this week, an added twist being that each man performed below expectations in their 2014 seasons (Cloke with 39 goals, Merrett with 12). They each have an opportunity this week to turn the ship around, adding some spice to any head-to-head battle. From the pre-season, it appears the Lions will look to plug the hole left by Patfull via Merrett, Clark and Gardiner as the talls, Paparone playing an Adcock release-valve role, with (Claye) Beams and Rich charged with breaking the lines.
In terms of who they line up on, a Pies’ front 6 that includes Elliott, White, Cloke, Karnezis and Blair sounds menacing to me, if they can get some decent supply and Cloke can avoid the inevitable double/triple team. Fasolo is back from last year’s foot issues, but came off a half-back in 2014 and Goldsack has drifted forward, playing a utility type role. Not to harp on it but I do want Karnezis to play this week (he didn’t play against the Dogs). It’s Patty K’s 5th year on an AFL list, and IMO, it’s rubber meets the road time in terms of delivery on potential, his body just needing to hold it together for things to click.
Reid is the other mystery in terms of will he or won’t he, but his recovery to date has hampered the prospects of him playing this week. With Lumumba a Demon now, it would be a great time to look at a big unit like Scharenberg, but again - the injury thing.
Another question is how the structure will look Lions-wise with both Leuey and Stef Martin in the same 22 and will playing a ruckman up-forward help plug the hole left by Brown. Other than the mozzie-squad, the bigger bodies like Close, McGuane, Staker and McStay will have the same task and will need to clunk a few if our front 6 are going to fire on all cylinders this year. On the other side of the ruck-fence, injury concerns arise, in that Grundy went off after a knock vs Carlton (but apparently is ok), Witts is coming back from a shoulder (and didn’t play a NAB challenge game), the Maggies giving US-convert Cox a pre-season run, and mentions of 1-gamer Corey Gault circle as a forward makeshift ruck.
My favourite rucking related tid-bit though sees the return of the people’s beard, Ben Hudson, to the Lions’ fold as ruck coach in 2015, from of all places, Collingwood, bringing with him a relationship with both Grundy and Witts. The people’s beard rocks, admit it.
Do you let them smolder, like paper in fire.
As much as it’s going to take patience for our mid-field to gel, and as much as I respect the sheer class of Swan and Pendlebury, I can’t help but tally up with the Lions having the edge in the ruck and midfield battle - I mean I haven’t mentioned quality ball users like Aish, Mayes or Rising Star winner, Taylor yet. That said, it’s clear (IMO) that the Pies have the edge up-forward. The one saving grace for the Lions untried front 6 is that the Pies back 6 don’t look as scary if Ben Reid doesn’t play. That probably comes across harsher than intended and isn’t a knock on Nathan Brown, but Brown only managed 3 games last year thanks to - yep, injury.
It’s a tough one, but I’ll go Lions, just because I can be biased on this board, and what’s more, I genuinely see too many quality ball users to think our forward-line woes will cost us the 4 points. It might be overly simplistic, but the Pies should find it harder to find their way through to their forwards, particularly where the Lions defensive pressure has been the highlight of their NAB campaign and I think even the most one-eyed Pies supporter would assess their ball-use against the Dogs as not up to snuff.
It is round 1 though - and by that I mean I expect missed targets all over the shop and a fair few falling off tackles - for both sides. Add in the night-time Gabba ‘dew’ on a humid Brisbane evening and we might have a real scrapfest on our hands.
That said - heart says Lions and this year, the head says we can do it, but it’ll be close. Lions by 10 points.
Bah, enough from me - enjoy the footy!
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Attribution:
What’s the expression? Borrow from 1 person and it’s stealing, borrow from 100 and it’s research. That’s the theory anyway and I’ll no doubt miss someone, but cheers to:
Snazzyspace for the fire gif thing
combined with this; and
This tut for the space Rocky thing.
1000 thanks.
Also many thanks to dlanold, Lionbear, PKWAG and Zoblitz for ok’ing my posting the official preview thread, sight unseen and all - much obliged.
