Why Lions fans have had enough (From 5/5/2015 Non NSW and QLD club supporters will be carded)

[Greggy85]

I can't reason with you guys. You say your 3 flags weren't a result of your salary concessions? Then you state you need salary concessions to be able to ever win a flag again? Just admit your list development has been disgraceful since the Voss era and things needs to change before a premiership can just fall in your lap. Plenty of Vic teams have been down the bottom for a long time due to the same reasons, so you can't claim it's because your in QLD. Look at Western Bulldogs, not a fan in sight, no money, yet have built a list that looks like it may be able to start contending. Lions have the acedemy and a great home ground advantage. Stop looking for quickfixes and excuses and build an AFL calibre list without asking for concessions.

Queensland is a non-traditional market. It's a rugby-centric state.
We have therefore, a smaller market. Lesser sponsorship. Fewer resources. Players, as a result, are more difficult to retain.
What part of that don't you understand? If it's so frustrating posting on our boards, dealing with the 'unreasonable' Lions fans, then don't.

 

[jackess]

Who says we need salary cap concessions? We'll probably lose Aish and Leuenberger at the end of the season with heaps of salary cap space left and with the list we have we shouldn't be pushing the salary cap anytime soon.

 

[Viceregal]

Queensland is a non-traditional market. It's a rugby-centric state.
We have therefore, a smaller market. Lesser sponsorship. Fewer resources. Players, as a result, are more difficult to retain.
What part of that don't you understand? If it's so frustrating posting on our boards, dealing with the 'unreasonable' Lions fans, then don't.

I am 100% certain that if we had moved Collingwood lock, stock and barrel up to Brisbane instead of creating the Bears back in 1986 that Collingwood would, today, be just as popular, just as wealthy, have the same TV exposure, have the same fixture, and the same facilities that they do today ... after all it is nothing to do with the market or the location it is purely a club management issue. *irony emoticon*

 

[Skoob]

I can't reason with you guys. You say your 3 flags weren't a result of your salary concessions? Then you state you need salary concessions to be able to ever win a flag again? Just admit your list development has been disgraceful since the Voss era and things needs to change before a premiership can just fall in your lap. Plenty of Vic teams have been down the bottom for a long time due to the same reasons, so you can't claim it's because your in QLD. Look at Western Bulldogs, not a fan in sight, no money, yet have built a list that looks like it may be able to start contending. Lions have the acedemy and a great home ground advantage. Stop looking for quickfixes and excuses and build an AFL calibre list without asking for concessions.

No, you just can't reason.
Some sort of concession (not necessarily salary) is needed to get us on anything resembling a level playing field, not make us unfairly greater than everyone else. The opposite can be said that the AFL (and all beneficiary clubs) want to grow the game and reap the rewards, but don't want those clubs to be successful.
The issue with building "an AFL calibre list" is that it is 10 times harder in Queensland than in Vic, SA & WA.
I guess your next proposal is that we should all shut up shop, then. Like Grant Thomas thinking clubs should live and die by their own management and fortunes, that ignores the pay day the whole competition gets by including 4 extra teams in non-traditional states. Happy to rake in the income from a 'national comp' and the marketing & TV that comes with it, but don't want to help those clubs that are pushing s**t up hill.

 

[dlanod]

I can't reason with you guys. You say your 3 flags weren't a result of your salary concessions? Then you state you need salary concessions to be able to ever win a flag again? Just admit your list development has been disgraceful since the Voss era and things needs to change before a premiership can just fall in your lap. Plenty of Vic teams have been down the bottom for a long time due to the same reasons, so you can't claim it's because your in QLD. Look at Western Bulldogs, not a fan in sight, no money, yet have built a list that looks like it may be able to start contending. Lions have the acedemy and a great home ground advantage. Stop looking for quickfixes and excuses and build an AFL calibre list without asking for concessions.

You're just tilting at straw men now. No one since your last post argued for salary concessions, so I'm not sure who you're "reasoning" with. You're not quoting anyone who's saying we need salary concessions. You're not even quoting anyone saying we need to win premierships - most of us want to be competitive, not go on a premiership winning spree. Rather than lecturing us in response to posts that aren't being written, either engage on what's actually being discussed or move on back to preaching to what I'm sure is the choir on other boards.

 

[karix]

I can't reason with you guys. You say your 3 flags weren't a result of your salary concessions? Then you state you need salary concessions to be able to ever win a flag again?

Both can be true. The Flags weren't a result of concessions, but now the market is much much different to what it was in the mid to late 90s when we were last building a list towards. So we need some kind of hand up to be competitive under these new market conditions.

Not clear about those differences? I can spell them out for you... they equate to a perfect storm.

• Fresh talent drain: GWS & Guns having massive draft concessions that have allowed them to absorb the vast bulk of the new talent, just as we were beginning a rebuild
• Mature talent drain: GWS & Suns and poach a good portion of the mature talent willing to move to frontier states. Their oversized caps also mean they distort the market value of these signings
• Free Agency: particularly the way it's used by clubs in finals contention/premiership window to lure players away from clubs at the bottom of the curb with the promise of glory
• Competition in a weak market: Add a second club to a frontier market. Like it or not Qld has limited sponsorship dollars especially for AFL. Those dollars tend to be quite fair weather too, so as you start to succeed you get more, but it's hard to maintain that support while you're rebuilding. Purely on a numbers game SEQ has a significantly lower population than Sydney (the other frontier market) does, so you need a much larger market slice to get equivalence in memberships and sponsorship.
• Global financial crisis: Again you add another club to a small market at an inopportune part of the development cycle for the Lions AND during an economic shock
• Brisbane/SEQ Floods: Rattles the confidence of sponsors, and drains discretionary spending away from the average punter.

Now I'm not saying that external factors are the only reason we're struggling at the moment. There are an army of well known internal issues and poor decisions as well. BUT these external factors all feed into each other and exponentially compound the challenges of creating a competitive lists for finals and ultimately premierships. These are disadvantages that no other club in the competition suffers as acutely as the Lions do, and they hit us at the worst possible time in our development cycle, and they were made that much worse by poor administration and decision making off the football field.

We've fixed our own house, and put it in order. Now we need the competition to help us deal with these additional external challenges so we can be on a level playing field again.

 

[Last of the Roys]

Well the Gold Coast game was pretty much torture (I watched it on mute for half of the match).

Going back to the stats side of things, obviously we are 0-5, and now have a percentage of just 51%. What is worse is that we have won just 1 out of 20 quarters and have an average losing margin of 58 points (70 points from the last 4 games).

For the hell of it I decided to go back and workout how many times previously we have gone 0-5 in our combined history.

Fitzroy = 10 times in 100 seasons (10% of the time)

• (1921 started off with 1 draw and 4 losses)
• 1928 = 0-5 with a percentage of 75.8% (actually started 0-6)
• 1938 = 0-5 with a percentage of 65.1% (won the next game)
• (1954 started off with 1 draw and 4 losses)
• 1963 = 0-5 with a percentage of 62.6% (actually went 0-9)
• 1964 = 0-5 with a percentage of 61.1% (actually went 0-18, not winning a game all season)
• 1966 = 0-5 and a percentage of 56.2% (actually went 0-14)
• 1967 = 0-5 with a percentage of 50.8% (actually went 0-7)
• 1976 = 0-5 with a percentage of 78.8% (went 0-6)
• 1991 = 0-5 with a percentage of 48.2% (went 0-8)
• 1995 = 0-5 with a percentage of 53.1% (won the next game)
• 1996 = 0-5 with a percentage of 55.1% (went 0-7)

Brisbane Bears = once out of 10 seasons (10% of the time)

• 1991 = 0-5 with a percentage of 60.3% (went 0-9)

Brisbane Lions = 4 times out of 19 seasons (21% of the time)

• 1998 = 0-5 with a percentage of 74.8% (won the next game)
• 2011 = 0-5 with a percentage of 74.6% (went 0-7)
• 2014 = 0-5 with a percentage of 53.8% (won the next game)
• 2015 = 0-5 with a percentage of 51%

So in a way the Lions are doing twice as bad as Fitzroy and the Bears did in terms of bad starts to the season. And in terms of it now happening 3 times in the last 5 years, that is only bettered by Fitzroy's absolute horror stretch between 1962-1967 when it happened 4 times out of 5 years (which included a stretch of winning just one game in two years).

In terms of how bad the 2015 start (0-5, 51%) compared to previous 0-5 starts, the only lower percentages in our combined history were Fitzroy back in 1991 (48.2%) and 1967 (50.8%).

Obviously we have gone worse than 0-5 on quite a few occasions - once as the Brisbane Lions [0-7], once as the Bears [0-9], and 8 times as Fitzroy [with the worst being 0-18]. However, it is hard to see how we can be competitive let alone win a game at the moment.

Surely that will turn around at some stage, but you wouldn't want to be banking on when that will happen.

 

[BrisbanePunter]

What makes it worse is we have had a cushy draw to start this year, last year we played the Hawks, Cats and Port in the first 5 rounds.

 

[Last of the Roys]

Another interesting point, we have now lost 7 home and away matches in a row. Our last win (not including the pre-season) was round 21, 2014 when we smashed Collingwood by 67 points at the MCG.

If we lose this weekend, we will equal the Brisbane Lions record losing streak of 8 games in a row (which has happened 3 time = 97/98, 2010, and 10/11 - although we did go 10 games without winning in 97/98 due a draw).

Although thankfully the record losing streak from our combined history are still some way off (12 in a row for the Bears, but a massive 27 losses in a row by Fitzroy in the '60's).

It is also interesting to note how much our team has changed since our last win in round 21 last year. Our side against the Gold Coast only feature 12 players from that team (11 if you don't count Rocky).

We have lost:

• Aish - out of form
• Close - injured
• Crisp - traded
• Freeman - injured
• Hanley - injured
• Harwood - injured / just returning in the reserves
• Maguire - out of form / out with concussion this week
• Mayes - injured
• Merrett - injured
• Patfull - traded

We have gained:

• Andrews - first year player
• Dayne Beams - traded in
• Christensen - traded in
• Cutler - second year player
• Golby
• Redden - back from injury
• Rich - back from injury
• Robertson - second year player
• Robinson - traded in
• Staker - momentarily back from injury

On paper the names in compared to the names out don't look so bad. However the huge change in the team has to cause problems. The real issue obviously is we lost our key position players - Patfull, Maguire, Merrett, Close and Freeman and haven't been able to cover them.

 

[Sausages]

Some time ago, I began to take great umbrage at the AFL for the administration of footy, especially QLD footy.

I think the club is in manacles and trying to swim...doing the best they can, at least from the coach upwards. Some players may be bludging, but I can't really comment.

The AFL is ruining the game in it's entirety in the pursuit of money. A look at every professional sporting code worldwide tells you...that will only end up one way. Big clubs get bigger, little clubs either fold or satisfy with being feeders and occasional bursts of success. We aren't going the way of the EPL either - we'll be more like the Bundesliga in 10 years at this rate, where you can put down Bayern Munich as champions at $1.0001 for next year and the year after and the year after....

It means entropy for the game up here.

 

[luthor]

The real issue obviously is we lost our key position players - Patfull, Maguire, Merrett, Close and Freeman and haven't been able to cover them.

Apologies for snipping your excellent post but this last part is the crux for me.( Also we had a handy bloke named J Brown running around for part of last season.)

We can wail and gnash our teeth and bemoan supposed lack of "effort" "fat" players, Aish-gate....etc etc...etc.....until the bloody proverbial cows come home.

The simple truth of the matter is that it's really hard to see how we can compete with the Mickey Mouse "spine" we've had to put out there .....and it doesn't look like it's going to get better any time soon.

 

[Roylion]

Just admit your list development has been disgraceful since the Voss era and things needs to change before a premiership can just fall in your lap. .

Can you explain how the Lions' list development has been "disgraceful"? So Fevola.... and?

 

[The_Sherrin]

There is no Pride or Passion in the Lions Jumper currently. The lack of aggression shown at the ball, Tackling and the 1 Percenters makes it inexcusable for what the Lions have dished out so far.No matter which player runs out on game day.

 

[Lionheart182]

Do people realise we didn't even have the highest TPP for at least two of those flag years? Might have even been all of them from memory.

 

[Simbatheking21]

I wish the lions would do this sort of stuff to get people to the games.

http://lon-cdn220-is-10.se.bponline...memberhsip_new_S_413059851-1024-413070424.mp4

 

[CarterS]

Just admit your list development has been disgraceful since the Voss era and things needs to change before a premiership can just fall in your lap.

I agree with you Crooked Girth. It has been disgraceful in my opinion. There's an article in the Herald Sun today that says that when Leppitsch joined he asked the (thankfully former) recruitment head Rob Kerr for the club's list management document he was handed one piece of paper with the list on it. Says it all. Travis Johnstone was a big mistake. Four top-10 draft picks have left since we last won the flag and that will be 5 with Aish. 30 players drafted between 2003 and 2009 and apparently only 4 remain at the club. Wow.

We have drafted Rockliff and Hanley through the rookie draft which is a big win. That's about it though.

 

[Mr Ripper]

Rockliff was PSD, not rookie.

 

[FFB1]

I wish the lions would do this sort of stuff to get people to the games.

A win here and there might get people to games

70,000 members, $1 a year for their training centre at Waverley, no wonder the Hawks can afford to send 25 members on a trip down to Tassie. If we did the same for Melbourne members the 'prize' would be a couple of Melbourne members scoring a tram ride to Brunswick St Oval for an amateurs game.

 

[dlanod]

Rockliff was PSD, not rookie.

If they repeat it often enough it becomes the truth, right?

 

[Hollow Knight]

Whether it is this thread or another one, we need a "way forward" discussion thread that is Lions supporters only (or limited to Brisbane, GWS, Suns and GWS fans).

Too many threads derailed by opposition supporters that are absolutely ignorant, usually wilfully, and I am sick of having to do the same old dance of reciting the same arguments which are dutifully ignored.

Like Lethal said... Victorian club supporters think they understand what it is like running a frontier club, but in reality they haven't got the faintest clue.

It's like trying to explain theoretical physics to a goat.

 

[MuthahufkaJones]

We need to get Vossy back, simple!!

 

[Ceebee]

We need to get Vossy back, simple!!

Why would he want to come back ?

 

[Simbatheking21]

A win here and there might get people to games

70,000 members, $1 a year for their training centre at Waverley, no wonder the Hawks can afford to send 25 members on a trip down to Tassie. If we did the same for Melbourne members the 'prize' would be a couple of Melbourne members scoring a tram ride to Brunswick St Oval for an amateurs game.

I know what you're saying but that kind crowd interaction would be great

 

[lionbear]

Like Lethal said... Victorian club supporters think they understand what it is like running a frontier club, but in reality they haven't got the faintest clue.

I would love to see Lethal and Eddie go head to head in a debate about it, would really expose how little Eddie understands about whats going on in Queensland.

But with Edddie being Mr Fox, Lethal being Mr Seven sadly it wont happen.

 

[lionbear]

Whether it is this thread or another one, we need a "way forward" discussion thread that is Lions supporters only (or limited to Brisbane, GWS, Suns and GWS fans).

Too many threads derailed by opposition supporters that are absolutely ignorant, usually wilfully, and I am sick of having to do the same old dance of reciting the same arguments which are dutifully ignored.

Thread has been now changed to say that non Queensland and New South Wales supporters will be carded automatically.

I am sick of "Salary Cap Concession This" and "Academy Players That" so lets just restrict it for now.

If its good for Essendon and Asada, then its good for the Lions and Rebuilding the club.