LIVE: Carlton v Melbourne - 7:30PM Thu
Squiggle tips Demons at 59% chance -- What's your tip? -- Team line-ups »
Weekly Prize - Join Any Time - Tip Round 9
The Golden Ticket - MCG and Marvel Medallion Club tickets and Corporate Box tickets at the Gabba, MCG and Marvel.
Voss has an average Lions side playing with endeavour if not much poise. The spirit is there. The silk is lacking. At times the Lions can do passable impersonations of Edward Scissorhands, but the raw effort cannot be faulted and that's what should get them places eventually.
The benefits of swiftly re-signing Voss are that with Greater Western Sydney about to launch their massive two-season recruiting campaign, it would enable Brisbane to nail down their future in the player market.
Also it may help Voss select teams. If he is secure in his future then he may be more inclined to bring in players who could be part of the next premiership side and not ones treading water such as Cheynee Stiller and Amon Buchanan.
Michael Voss must think he is cursed. Twelve months ago the Fev deal was going to take his Lions to a grand final. Alas, Fev's gone, as has a truckload of money, senior players and credibility. So they regroup over summer. Round one comes and Jonathan Brown has his face smashed in by an accidental knee. In the same game they lose tall defender Brent Staker with a collapsed knee. Ouch! Voss is learning on the job the very hard way.
Make no mistake, the Lions coach is under enormous pressure this week. He cannot afford to oversee a Brisbane loss to the Gold Coast Suns.
Brisbane have an emerging side, just like the Suns do, and there are critics who believe Voss should be given a contract extension now so he can continue the development process. But if they cannot beat their younger siblings the wolves will start baying for blood.
Black, a long-time teammate and close mate of Voss's, said speculation on the coach was unfair. "I don't see Vossie being under any pressure, he is not the one out there performing, he's doing a fantastic job. It's far far too early for our coach to cop any criticism."
Power was also adamant Voss remained the right man for the job. He said the players were behind the coach and were desperate to put in a big effort and record their breakthrough win against the Suns.
"The boys and the staff have great belief in him and his structures and the way he is going," he said. "Unfortunately we haven't been able to put the runs on the board, it is important definitely, not just for him but for our whole club that we go out and play well this weekend."
O'Donnell's chance to face the Brisbane media came with under-pressure coach Michael Voss suffering from gastro and keeping himself quarantined away from his players at the Gabba.
"It takes a lot to knock Vossy off his perch, so he must be pretty crook. It might be coming out both ends. It's no good him being around the footy club with a chance to give it to the players," said O'Donnell.
"I don't think it will (influence preparation). The preparation on a Tuesday is low-key with a bit of light skills, so we won't miss him that much. Our main training day is on the Wednesday, so hopefully he's back tomorrow."
The future of coach Michael Voss will also be a talking point later in the year but I don’t think we will find out anything we do not already know about the Lions in the next 18 Rounds.
They are young, honest and developing and will have a tough year regardless of highs and lows. With that already known, the Lions board are already in a position where they can determine if Voss is the man to lead these young boys for the next few years, which I believe he is.
Mistakes have been made but not all can land at the feet of Voss and the club needs to move on and look to the future. Rather than waiting for the pressure to mount the club are in a position to set their future direction and assist in club stability.
IF BRISBANE Lions coach Michael Voss was unhappy ahead of Queensland's historic AFL derby clash, he would have been ropeable by full-time at the Gabba last night.
In a match between the AFL's 16th and 17th-placed sides, so much more was at stake last night. Indeed, Voss must now expect serious questions about his future after his side slumped to an 0-6 record.
When Coldplay penned the lyrics of their 2008 hit Viva La Vida they certainly didn't have Michael Voss in mind. But I wonder if the Brisbane Lions coach is a fan of the popular UK band because the song goes a long way to summing up how he and his club are travelling right now.
Take this sentence from Viva La Vida – 'I used to roll the dice, feel the fear in my enemy's eyes, listen as the crowd would sing, now the old king is dead, long live the king.'
Sadly Voss the coach isn't Voss the player with this line from Coldplay a fair indication of his tenure: 'One minute I held the key, next the walls were closed on me and I discovered that my castle stands on pillars of salt and pillars of sand'.
But the harsh facts are that this is the predicament they find themselves in. And the general consensus says Voss is responsible, it's his mess.
The question is: should he stick around to clean it up?
MICHAEL Voss is hanging by a thread. The man he was as a player won't save him. But the man he is becoming might.
Right now the club is unified in the belief that they are making progress and that Voss is the right man for the job.
The players are 100 per cent behind him.
Last week John Reid, the man who led the contentious review into the football department that led to Collins's sacking and Voss being stripped of a lot of his power, was back in town to cast an eye over Brisbane's progress.
It is believed he gave Voss's new attitude and relationship with his players a thumbs-up to the board that is what is saving his bacon right now.
``I just feel sorry for Vossy. He's doing such a good job, but the players aren't delivering for him,'' the 31-year-old midfielder said.
``He's definitely got the players support. He's doing a great job but we just keep letting him down.
``He didn't go out there (against the Suns) and fumble and lose contests. That was us.''
We at BPL had the Lions pegged as wooden spooners this year and we could be right. They're not particularly well coached (Daniel Merrett to the forward line for the first half was a puzzling choice) and they go to sleep at puzzling times. Case in point was Saturday night, when having drawn level in the final term, the Lions then yielded the Suns (who were dead on their feet) two late goals to seal the win.
After making some tough off-season decisions - including the termination of contracts for Brendan Fevola and Albert Proud - Voss said the club had decided to develop its youth and that's what they would stick with.
"We're not changing anything, that’s where we're going, that's what we're doing, and results go for us or they don’t go for us and we're not changing it," he said.
"I think we've always viewed it as a growth phase. As a match committee we've picked that way. We've had five or six debutants and I think we're backing up where we're going."
MICHAEL Voss is going to live his way. And that could mean he'll die his way, too. The besieged Lions coach made that clear when he fronted the media, jutted out his chin, and defiantly announced he didn't need to change a thing about his coaching style.
It was a remarkable performance from a man, who has overseen just three wins from the last 24 attempts.
If the losses continue, at some point the Lions board will decide that sticking firm with a system, which is not working is not strength - it is stupidity.
Embattled Brisbane coach Michael Voss appears to be walking in the same dark shadow that former Collingwood coach Tony Shaw once paced when he succeeded premiership coach and AFL legend Leigh Matthews. They were both logical choices to replace Matthews who brought ultimate success to success-starved clubs but departed leaving only crumbs on the playing table.
If the Lions put their faith in Voss then it must be for a minimum of two seasons, says Shaw.
"If they understand that (they need time to develop their younger players) and know they can't fix it quick, they might be happy with just Vossy staying there," Shaw said.
"If you go with him, go with him for two years, not one - that's just crap, that's just holding the dam wall up."
