Analysis Season 2025 - Statistics and Analytics Thread

[Section 5]

Generating scoring opportunities wasn’t much of an issue, it’s the defensive workrate which is required to win finals

It was mentioned that the Lions defense 7 were good at getting back to defend unlike most other clubs on turnovers.

The whole point of the discussion was the Brisbane Lions have drastically changed their game style the last 6 weeks.
Something no other side has done in their history of CD records.
It was also a good time to change as any team trying a big change now is not likely to pull it off successfully.

He also mentioned only two teams in the competition are going more directly at goal rather than going wide.
They are the Lions and Dogs, but the Dogs defense is letting them down at present according to CD.
Let's hope the Dogs lack of defense continues Friday evening.

Last year it was the Lions offense that got them home in finals including the GF.
Sure, defense work rate is still required to win any game that's a given.
Same as midfield and forwards work rate.
Putting them all together is the ideal outcome, but not always possible.

 

[Nathan Barley]

It was mentioned that the Lions defense 7 were good at getting back to defend unlike most other clubs on turnovers.

The whole point of the discussion was the Brisbane Lions have drastically changed their game style the last 6 weeks.
Something no other side has done in their history of CD records.
It was also a good time to change as any team trying a big change now is not likely to pull it off successfully.

He also mentioned only two teams in the competition are going more directly at goal rather than going wide.
They are the Lions and Dogs, but the Dogs defense is letting them down at present according to CD.
Let's hope the Dogs lack of defense continues Friday evening.

Last year it was the Lions offense that got them home in finals including the GF.
Sure, defense work rate is still required to win any game that's a given.
Same as midfield and forwards work rate.
Putting them all together is the ideal outcome, but not always possible.

Guessing it was more in their history of tracking ball movement speed which isn’t far back

And how has it been successful?

Last 6 weeks we’ve beaten but not played very well against Essendon, Port and Carlton. Lost to Adelaide and the Giants and played 1 excellent 4 quarter performance against Geelong

It’s not like our form turnaround last year when we did the dancing on ice, risky ball movement

I think it’s lazy journalism at the moment to talk about how good we are

 

[twhowler]

Guessing it was more in their history of tracking ball movement speed which isn’t far back

And how has it been successful?

Last 6 weeks we’ve beaten but not played very well against Essendon, Port and Carlton. Lost to Adelaide and the Giants and played 1 excellent 4 quarter performance against Geelong

It’s not like our form turnaround last year when we did the dancing on ice, risky ball movement

I think it’s lazy journalism at the moment to talk about how good we are

I find this stat quite interesting, albeit i am in the same camp of not being totally convinced about us as a 2025 flag side.

The Geelong performance was very good and notable for ball movement.

The patches of good in the port and carlton games were very good

I guess when you try to flick the switch like we have it will open you up more - it's about getting the balance right

And we have seen in games that we have been opened up.

But i like that we are trying something different.

Bailey is such a huge part of our fast ball movement, will be interesting to see how we go without him

 

[Dalions]

Bailey is such a huge part of our fast ball movement, will be interesting to see how we go without him

Atleast it is only for one game.

 

[Nathan Barley]

Atleast it is only for one game.

And against a front running midfield who aren’t hard to beat on turnover.

Would like to replace him with someone like Fletcher who can be quite damaging as well

 

[Tricky Dicky]

Slow ball movement was a factor against Collingwood (amongst other things) when they flogged us in Rd 6.

Compare that to our fast ball movement against Geelong in Rd 15.

 

[Dalions]

Slow ball movement was a factor against Collingwood (amongst other things) when they flogged us in Rd 6.

Compare that to our fast ball movement against Geelong in Rd 15.

We went fairly quickly early in that game from memory and looked good for it.
But in the end, just weren’t as ready physically as much as the pies for that particular game so early in the season off a short preseason.
Also our defensive pressure in the midfield was non existent.
We will be more physically ready in round 21

 

[Dalions]

And against a front running midfield who aren’t hard to beat on turnover.

Would like to replace him with someone like Fletcher who can be quite damaging as well

I think Fages will want to keep as much of the backline together as possible so I reckon Fletcher stays back and maybe Reville comes in for Bailey.
Beeken or Marshall for Sub.

 

[Section 5]

And against a front running midfield who aren’t hard to beat on turnover.

Would like to replace him with someone like Fletcher who can be quite damaging as well

Why move Fletcher.
We lost Payne from R15 and now Answerth from our defense.
Fletcher appears to be flexible but no need to have 3 missing from our fairly recent solid back 6.

Reville has played that forward/wing relief role before. Not great like Bailey, but he will be serviceable.

If not Reville they will go for someone else but i doubt it will be Fletcher.

 

[twhowler]

Slow ball movement was a factor against Collingwood (amongst other things) when they flogged us in Rd 6.

Compare that to our fast ball movement against Geelong in Rd 15.

we just stopped completely even trying to move the ball in that pies game. always hard to judge on the telly but it looked a bit like us not running and pies clogging up

really keen to see how we go against them at the mcg. harder to defend for both sides

 

[Nathan Barley]

Why move Fletcher.
We lost Payne from R15 and now Answerth from our defense.
Fletcher appears to be flexible but no need to have 3 missing from our fairly recent solid back 6.

Reville has played that forward/wing relief role before. Not great like Bailey, but he will be serviceable.

If not Reville they will go for someone else but i doubt it will be Fletcher.

*back 7

We still have Andrews, Zorko, Lester and Wilmot and it’s not as if Starce or Dizzy are new to the club.

With Payne and Answerth done for the season it would also be worthwhile to test out some depth in case there are more injuries

 

[Nathan Barley]

we just stopped completely even trying to move the ball in that pies game. always hard to judge on the telly but it looked a bit like us not running and pies clogging up

really keen to see how we go against them at the mcg. harder to defend for both sides

Pies are the hardest running club in the AFL which is our kryptonite especially if we’re not winning clearances like what happened earlier in the year when our entire midfield were pretty average

 

[GenericUsername202]

Gamestyles evolve. What we were doing in 2023 and 2024 was a slight evolution of the hawthorn football method. It worked well for its time, but once 2025 rolled along, it was clear that we were off and we only got by on talent, not through system. I've never seen Fagan more displeased with the first half of the season than i did this year. He was even more upbeat last year when we were 13th, because he saw our system as something that was working. The way we played in the first half of the season was obviously not going to stack up in finals and credit to Fagan, he saw that and decided to flip the switch and try something new. The SEN analysis was a great insight into how different we are now, because our new gamestyle aims to punish you on the turnover at a much faster rate. And because we're more frantic in our movement, we are causing more errors that lead into turnovers without having to tackle at all. Speed of defence coupled with a quick handball game in the middle is what defines us now and its something that not only has added a new dimension to our gameplan, but it makes it harder for teams to figure us out. We were predictable at the start of the year, and now we're not.

 

[Section 5]

*back 7

We still have Andrews, Zorko, Lester and Wilmot and it’s not as if Starce or Dizzy are new to the club.

With Payne and Answerth done for the season it would also be worthwhile to test out some depth in case there are more injuries

"back 7"
We all know there is 7 defenders when including the bench and possibly excluding the sub but only 6 on the field.

So, you want to move Fletcher to see if our defense depth is any good while Bailey is out, just in case we have more injuries
Don't see the logic in doing that.

A completely different story if Fletcher, Zorko or Wilmot is not available this week.
Then Beecken, McKenna, Brain a chance. Coleman and Doedee ahead of those players but we still don't know their return date.

 

[Nathan Barley]

"back 7"
We all know there is 7 defenders when including the bench and possibly excluding the sub but only 6 on the field.

So, you want to move Fletcher to see if our defense depth is any good while Bailey is out, just in case we have more injuries
Don't see the logic in doing that.

A completely different story if Fletcher, Zorko or Wilmot is not available this week.
Then Beecken, McKenna, Brain a chance. Coleman and Doedee ahead of those players but we still don't know their return date.

I’d bring in Beecken for Bailey and shift Fletcher to the wing because I think that is the team selection that will most likely result in us beating the bulldogs.

Building some depth is just a very handy bonus, plus Fages has already been rotating the last couple of spots

 

[Grasshopper17]

View attachment 2345722

75 wins per flag. Ruthless efficiency really.

 

[Grasshopper17]

Of those who have been to the gabba, does the atmosphere seem to be less intense? Maybe more casual fans or supporters happy we won a flag? sounds like that on the telly. they don't seem to really fire up or try to get the team going when they are struggling

I've been meaning to put this in an email to Dom at the Roar Deal - he's mentioned this a couple of times.

Anyway I have a few thoughts, and given I've been to every Lions game (home and away) this year, and the vast majority of games from 2022 onwards, as well as most Broncos home games in that time, I feel reasonably well qualified to comment.

I think there's 3 areas.



1. Success/entitlement

I look at the Geelong crowd a few weeks ago. They were so tame. Like, there was one moron behind me who literally whinged the whole night about the umpiring and how sh!t Geelong were and what w***ers Brisbane fans are (compliment accepted). He fair dinkum made Collingwood fans sound intelligent, it truly was a remarkable performance.

The rest of them were so polite and well mannered, as they were really the last two times I went down there, in 2021 and 2022. Both of those were losses for us so it wasn't like they suddenly become monsters depending on the result. After the 2021 game (the Zac Bailey tackle game) a lady came up to me as we were all leaving the ground to say "you guys deserved to win". And even after the game a month ago, a random Geelong fan in his mid-late 40s called out to me as we were walking away from the ground. I assumed he was gonna heckle me but he goes "goodness me your blokes were good tonight... I hope we avoid you in the finals"! I was gobsmacked. Just so gracious.

They must be the nicest fans, and it makes me wonder if it's simply because of all the flags they've won recently, and if going to Kardinia Park in say 2006 would have been a more hostile experience? I'm not sure either way - maybe with a smaller capacity back then it was harder for casual fans to get tickets so there was a higher % of morons?

I think it's food for thought tho. Certainly the semi final against the Giants in 2019 is the single most hostile crowd I can ever remember at the Gabba, and the thing I recall most about everyone around me that night, was that we were all there to WATCH THE GAME. In 2025 it feels more like people are going to an event, it's an excuse to catch up with their mates and "oh did something just happen?"

I don't know if that's more casual fans or the same fans just a bit happier with their lot in life now



2. Intent

The players talk about how the Gabba crowd really gets them up and about etc. But the more games I go to, the more I feel like the reverse is true even more.

But even then I don't think it's the brilliant goals or the high marks that gets the crowd up and about. And I sort of came to realise this when I was at Lang Park the other week when the Broncos played the Warriors.

I'll paint the picture a bit. Glorious sunny Saturday arvo, 60 minutes or so gone, Broncos lead I think 20-12 or something, Warriors are coming back, everyone's a bit nervous. Anyway we have an average set of 6 before kicking from just behind halfway. The kick's coming down towards our end where we are behind the goals. All day long our blokes have just been jogging through on the kick chase, allowing the receiver to gain a good 10-15m before being tackled.

THIS kick chase tho is different. I have no idea why THIS kick chase, but suddenly there are 5 Broncos all sprinting down the field, like you can literally see them coming, the poor Warriors guy catches the ball 5m from his goal line and suddenly has nowhere to go. He gets swamped immediately, and straight away the crowd, which had been murmuring a bit, is up and about, right into the game. We have a massive defensive set, the Warriors don't get past the 10m line till the 3rd tackle, and end up being forced to kick from well inside their own 30.

On the back of just that one great defensive set, the crowd is fully on edge and pretty raucous for the next 10 minutes, we score on the back of it with about 5 minutes to go which seals victory.

To bring it back to our code, I actually think it's all about DEFENSIVE INTENT, rather than spectacular plays. Think Mitch Robinson throwing himself at opponent after opponent, Charlie Cameron running blokes down from behind, Harris Andrews getting a desperate fist out of bounds despite being completely out of position. The casual fan might not necessarily know why they feel suddenly more involved in the game, but I reckon there's a bit of the subconscious in us that recognises when the effort goes over and above the norm.

That pressure and defensive intent has been lacking a bit from our guys in recent Gabba games, which is why I think crowd involvement might also have been down a bit, independent of scoreboard results.



3. Activations

Dom mentioned that he thought going to Gabba games now feels like going to Broncos games back in the late noughties. My first time at Lang Park for a Broncos game didn't come till many years after that, but one of the absolute blights on going to games there (besides that god-awful song they play after EVERY try), is the way the ground announcer literally starts the "Broncos clap-clap-clap" chants. Like, the game is actually happening! And he starts up with getting the crowd going. It is genuinely disgusting. But it means that there is relatively little opportunity for any organic support to start up from within the crowd itself.

I don't know if this was happening when Dom was going to games, but my original thoughts on this was that now that the genie is out of the bottle, it's going to be very hard to put it back in. ie, if you instruct the announcer to shut up, the crowd will take a good 5-10 years to get the organic support back up and going, so you sort of fear for the atmosphere at games in the meantime.

BUT, I went down to the Gold Coast for our match with the Titans on Sunday night, there was a good portion of travelling Broncos fans (the train I was on was packed), and being an away game, we had to make our own noise for the lads. And we did; plenty of organic Broncos chants. So I have hope that maybe it wouldn't be quite as bad as 5-10 years.

Which brings me back to our AFL activations...

The goal songs.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love a good Country Roads and Hey Baby singalong into the next passage of play as much as the next Lions nuffy. Heck we were even doing it at Docklands on Thursday night. But I wonder that after 5 years of it, is it starting to hinder the organic support which would ordinarily be generated by the crowd itself? Do we actually need the silence after goals to give our fans room to get up and about with a raucous chant and get behind the lads?



I don't have all the answers, but these are the 3 aspects I sort of feel are relevant as to why the atmosphere at our home games has changed a bit this year.

 

[twhowler]

I've been meaning to put this in an email to Dom at the Roar Deal - he's mentioned this a couple of times.

Anyway I have a few thoughts, and given I've been to every Lions game (home and away) this year, and the vast majority of games from 2022 onwards, as well as most Broncos home games in that time, I feel reasonably well qualified to comment.

I think there's 3 areas.



1. Success/entitlement

I look at the Geelong crowd a few weeks ago. They were so tame. Like, there was one moron behind me who literally whinged the whole night about the umpiring and how sh!t Geelong were and what w***ers Brisbane fans are (compliment accepted). He fair dinkum made Collingwood fans sound intelligent, it truly was a remarkable performance.

The rest of them were so polite and well mannered, as they were really the last two times I went down there, in 2021 and 2022. Both of those were losses for us so it wasn't like they suddenly become monsters depending on the result. After the 2021 game (the Zac Bailey tackle game) a lady came up to me as we were all leaving the ground to say "you guys deserved to win". And even after the game a month ago, a random Geelong fan in his mid-late 40s called out to me as we were walking away from the ground. I assumed he was gonna heckle me but he goes "goodness me your blokes were good tonight... I hope we avoid you in the finals"! I was gobsmacked. Just so gracious.

They must be the nicest fans, and it makes me wonder if it's simply because of all the flags they've won recently, and if going to Kardinia Park in say 2006 would have been a more hostile experience? I'm not sure either way - maybe with a smaller capacity back then it was harder for casual fans to get tickets so there was a higher % of morons?

I think it's food for thought tho. Certainly the semi final against the Giants in 2019 is the single most hostile crowd I can ever remember at the Gabba, and the thing I recall most about everyone around me that night, was that we were all there to WATCH THE GAME. In 2025 it feels more like people are going to an event, it's an excuse to catch up with their mates and "oh did something just happen?"

I don't know if that's more casual fans or the same fans just a bit happier with their lot in life now



2. Intent

The players talk about how the Gabba crowd really gets them up and about etc. But the more games I go to, the more I feel like the reverse is true even more.

But even then I don't think it's the brilliant goals or the high marks that gets the crowd up and about. And I sort of came to realise this when I was at Lang Park the other week when the Broncos played the Warriors.

I'll paint the picture a bit. Glorious sunny Saturday arvo, 60 minutes or so gone, Broncos lead I think 20-12 or something, Warriors are coming back, everyone's a bit nervous. Anyway we have an average set of 6 before kicking from just behind halfway. The kick's coming down towards our end where we are behind the goals. All day long our blokes have just been jogging through on the kick chase, allowing the receiver to gain a good 10-15m before being tackled.

THIS kick chase tho is different. I have no idea why THIS kick chase, but suddenly there are 5 Broncos all sprinting down the field, like you can literally see them coming, the poor Warriors guy catches the ball 5m from his goal line and suddenly has nowhere to go. He gets swamped immediately, and straight away the crowd, which had been murmuring a bit, is up and about, right into the game. We have a massive defensive set, the Warriors don't get past the 10m line till the 3rd tackle, and end up being forced to kick from well inside their own 30.

On the back of just that one great defensive set, the crowd is fully on edge and pretty raucous for the next 10 minutes, we score on the back of it with about 5 minutes to go which seals victory.

To bring it back to our code, I actually think it's all about DEFENSIVE INTENT, rather than spectacular plays. Think Mitch Robinson throwing himself at opponent after opponent, Charlie Cameron running blokes down from behind, Harris Andrews getting a desperate fist out of bounds despite being completely out of position. The casual fan might not necessarily know why they feel suddenly more involved in the game, but I reckon there's a bit of the subconscious in us that recognises when the effort goes over and above the norm.

That pressure and defensive intent has been lacking a bit from our guys in recent Gabba games, which is why I think crowd involvement might also have been down a bit, independent of scoreboard results.



3. Activations

Dom mentioned that he thought going to Gabba games now feels like going to Broncos games back in the late noughties. My first time at Lang Park for a Broncos game didn't come till many years after that, but one of the absolute blights on going to games there (besides that god-awful song they play after EVERY try), is the way the ground announcer literally starts the "Broncos clap-clap-clap" chants. Like, the game is actually happening! And he starts up with getting the crowd going. It is genuinely disgusting. But it means that there is relatively little opportunity for any organic support to start up from within the crowd itself.

I don't know if this was happening when Dom was going to games, but my original thoughts on this was that now that the genie is out of the bottle, it's going to be very hard to put it back in. ie, if you instruct the announcer to shut up, the crowd will take a good 5-10 years to get the organic support back up and going, so you sort of fear for the atmosphere at games in the meantime.

BUT, I went down to the Gold Coast for our match with the Titans on Sunday night, there was a good portion of travelling Broncos fans (the train I was on was packed), and being an away game, we had to make our own noise for the lads. And we did; plenty of organic Broncos chants. So I have hope that maybe it wouldn't be quite as bad as 5-10 years.

Which brings me back to our AFL activations...

The goal songs.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love a good Country Roads and Hey Baby singalong into the next passage of play as much as the next Lions nuffy. Heck we were even doing it at Docklands on Thursday night. But I wonder that after 5 years of it, is it starting to hinder the organic support which would ordinarily be generated by the crowd itself? Do we actually need the silence after goals to give our fans room to get up and about with a raucous chant and get behind the lads?



I don't have all the answers, but these are the 3 aspects I sort of feel are relevant as to why the atmosphere at our home games has changed a bit this year.

great insight

i do feel as though the crowd songs have run their race. it kills the best chant we have - liiiions. liiiioons. was so good at our 3 away finals. maybe when charlie retires we can give it a rest for a bit? i doubt it given other clubs have started

i think we are so used to a good side as an we are not impressed by wins. but what surprises me is the crowd not getting more involved when we start losing ie dees / giants at the gabba. the crowd mostly just doesn't seem to care. maybe the steeper price of finals will change that if we manage any home finals

gotta say being at those 3 away finals was so good - true believers only.

 

[Nunez]

I've been meaning to put this in an email to Dom at the Roar Deal - he's mentioned this a couple of times.

Anyway I have a few thoughts, and given I've been to every Lions game (home and away) this year, and the vast majority of games from 2022 onwards, as well as most Broncos home games in that time, I feel reasonably well qualified to comment.

I think there's 3 areas.



1. Success/entitlement

I look at the Geelong crowd a few weeks ago. They were so tame. Like, there was one moron behind me who literally whinged the whole night about the umpiring and how sh!t Geelong were and what w***ers Brisbane fans are (compliment accepted). He fair dinkum made Collingwood fans sound intelligent, it truly was a remarkable performance.

The rest of them were so polite and well mannered, as they were really the last two times I went down there, in 2021 and 2022. Both of those were losses for us so it wasn't like they suddenly become monsters depending on the result. After the 2021 game (the Zac Bailey tackle game) a lady came up to me as we were all leaving the ground to say "you guys deserved to win". And even after the game a month ago, a random Geelong fan in his mid-late 40s called out to me as we were walking away from the ground. I assumed he was gonna heckle me but he goes "goodness me your blokes were good tonight... I hope we avoid you in the finals"! I was gobsmacked. Just so gracious.

They must be the nicest fans, and it makes me wonder if it's simply because of all the flags they've won recently, and if going to Kardinia Park in say 2006 would have been a more hostile experience? I'm not sure either way - maybe with a smaller capacity back then it was harder for casual fans to get tickets so there was a higher % of morons?

I think it's food for thought tho. Certainly the semi final against the Giants in 2019 is the single most hostile crowd I can ever remember at the Gabba, and the thing I recall most about everyone around me that night, was that we were all there to WATCH THE GAME. In 2025 it feels more like people are going to an event, it's an excuse to catch up with their mates and "oh did something just happen?"

I don't know if that's more casual fans or the same fans just a bit happier with their lot in life now



2. Intent

The players talk about how the Gabba crowd really gets them up and about etc. But the more games I go to, the more I feel like the reverse is true even more.

But even then I don't think it's the brilliant goals or the high marks that gets the crowd up and about. And I sort of came to realise this when I was at Lang Park the other week when the Broncos played the Warriors.

I'll paint the picture a bit. Glorious sunny Saturday arvo, 60 minutes or so gone, Broncos lead I think 20-12 or something, Warriors are coming back, everyone's a bit nervous. Anyway we have an average set of 6 before kicking from just behind halfway. The kick's coming down towards our end where we are behind the goals. All day long our blokes have just been jogging through on the kick chase, allowing the receiver to gain a good 10-15m before being tackled.

THIS kick chase tho is different. I have no idea why THIS kick chase, but suddenly there are 5 Broncos all sprinting down the field, like you can literally see them coming, the poor Warriors guy catches the ball 5m from his goal line and suddenly has nowhere to go. He gets swamped immediately, and straight away the crowd, which had been murmuring a bit, is up and about, right into the game. We have a massive defensive set, the Warriors don't get past the 10m line till the 3rd tackle, and end up being forced to kick from well inside their own 30.

On the back of just that one great defensive set, the crowd is fully on edge and pretty raucous for the next 10 minutes, we score on the back of it with about 5 minutes to go which seals victory.

To bring it back to our code, I actually think it's all about DEFENSIVE INTENT, rather than spectacular plays. Think Mitch Robinson throwing himself at opponent after opponent, Charlie Cameron running blokes down from behind, Harris Andrews getting a desperate fist out of bounds despite being completely out of position. The casual fan might not necessarily know why they feel suddenly more involved in the game, but I reckon there's a bit of the subconscious in us that recognises when the effort goes over and above the norm.

That pressure and defensive intent has been lacking a bit from our guys in recent Gabba games, which is why I think crowd involvement might also have been down a bit, independent of scoreboard results.



3. Activations

Dom mentioned that he thought going to Gabba games now feels like going to Broncos games back in the late noughties. My first time at Lang Park for a Broncos game didn't come till many years after that, but one of the absolute blights on going to games there (besides that god-awful song they play after EVERY try), is the way the ground announcer literally starts the "Broncos clap-clap-clap" chants. Like, the game is actually happening! And he starts up with getting the crowd going. It is genuinely disgusting. But it means that there is relatively little opportunity for any organic support to start up from within the crowd itself.

I don't know if this was happening when Dom was going to games, but my original thoughts on this was that now that the genie is out of the bottle, it's going to be very hard to put it back in. ie, if you instruct the announcer to shut up, the crowd will take a good 5-10 years to get the organic support back up and going, so you sort of fear for the atmosphere at games in the meantime.

BUT, I went down to the Gold Coast for our match with the Titans on Sunday night, there was a good portion of travelling Broncos fans (the train I was on was packed), and being an away game, we had to make our own noise for the lads. And we did; plenty of organic Broncos chants. So I have hope that maybe it wouldn't be quite as bad as 5-10 years.

Which brings me back to our AFL activations...

The goal songs.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love a good Country Roads and Hey Baby singalong into the next passage of play as much as the next Lions nuffy. Heck we were even doing it at Docklands on Thursday night. But I wonder that after 5 years of it, is it starting to hinder the organic support which would ordinarily be generated by the crowd itself? Do we actually need the silence after goals to give our fans room to get up and about with a raucous chant and get behind the lads?



I don't have all the answers, but these are the 3 aspects I sort of feel are relevant as to why the atmosphere at our home games has changed a bit this year.

Point 1 is 100% how I feel, and I include myself in that bucket. I think as a successful team the season feels nothing like seeding to me. I don't feel nearly as invested as I did in the lead up to our flag because I know the real thing starts in the back end of the year. Friday feels like the first I am genuinely buzzing about. The real stuff starts now.

 

[Grasshopper17]

SEN has done a great analysis on how Brisbane has drastically changed their gameplan in the last 6 weeks. Brisbane in 2023 and 2024 were one of the slowest teams to goal and one of the least aggressive teams to goal, however, in the last 6 weeks, they have jumped to the 4th most aggressive team to goal in the comp. It's the biggest change that they have recorded in mid-season. Kudos to Fagan and CO, because even though we were winning games early on in the year, every key metric had us as a mid table team with a performance that couldn't stand up in september anymore. I kept saying this, and the stats backed it up. Fagan obviously saw this and decided to change things up, which is why we have looked significantly better recently. The way we have been playing recently is something new, which will catch a lot of teams by surprise, and it could help us potentially chase down another flag. Something i thought we couldn't do this year.

So this was really interesting I thought. I reckon there are two ways of looking at this.

The first is that this is simply the continued evolution of something Fages touched on way back in February 2024, when he sat down with Dom and Mike at that little venue out at Seven Hills (I think?). And he said he wanted us to handball more.

We didn't really see any of that until sh!t hit the fan against the Giants in the semi last year, and then really got going in the prelim after half time. And this season has simply been an extension of that, where we've built on this week by week, perhaps spurred on a bit also by the change in treatment by umpires of 15m kicks in the back half.

But there's another element which I think is far more interesting.

Hoyney is talking about the last 6 weeks. So after Round 12, which is what he mentioned was his delineation point. A quick look at those games. Round 13 we played Adelaide, it was a wet, miserable night, which actually lent itself to playing a relatively direct style, and largely we did that.

That game to me was a bit of an outlier tho, because in the first quarter of the very next game, Jack Payne did his knee.

And I think that ever since that point, we've decided "righto, we're gonna be undersized for the rest of the season, we're gonna have to attack our way to a flag". And I think that's been the real turning point for us to really pin our ears back on these changes to our game which we were already working towards, but now we're going extra hard at it.

We are risking being scored against by moving the ball more quickly, but hoping that we can score more heavily in the process ourselves. Because I'm guessing the rationale is if we try to play as we had been playing, we may get scored against just as heavily due to our personnel in defence.

I've said before that a good defence will always beat a good attack, but that I believe that a GREAT attack will always beat a GREAT defence. I don't believe this hypothesis has ever been thoroughly put to the test, but I have a feeling we're about to see this experiment in real life, and we are the guinea pigs.

Bring it on.

 

[martinson]

I've been meaning to put this in an email to Dom at the Roar Deal - he's mentioned this a couple of times.

Anyway I have a few thoughts, and given I've been to every Lions game (home and away) this year, and the vast majority of games from 2022 onwards, as well as most Broncos home games in that time, I feel reasonably well qualified to comment.

I think there's 3 areas.



1. Success/entitlement

I look at the Geelong crowd a few weeks ago. They were so tame. Like, there was one moron behind me who literally whinged the whole night about the umpiring and how sh!t Geelong were and what w***ers Brisbane fans are (compliment accepted). He fair dinkum made Collingwood fans sound intelligent, it truly was a remarkable performance.

The rest of them were so polite and well mannered, as they were really the last two times I went down there, in 2021 and 2022. Both of those were losses for us so it wasn't like they suddenly become monsters depending on the result. After the 2021 game (the Zac Bailey tackle game) a lady came up to me as we were all leaving the ground to say "you guys deserved to win". And even after the game a month ago, a random Geelong fan in his mid-late 40s called out to me as we were walking away from the ground. I assumed he was gonna heckle me but he goes "goodness me your blokes were good tonight... I hope we avoid you in the finals"! I was gobsmacked. Just so gracious.

They must be the nicest fans, and it makes me wonder if it's simply because of all the flags they've won recently, and if going to Kardinia Park in say 2006 would have been a more hostile experience? I'm not sure either way - maybe with a smaller capacity back then it was harder for casual fans to get tickets so there was a higher % of morons?

I think it's food for thought tho. Certainly the semi final against the Giants in 2019 is the single most hostile crowd I can ever remember at the Gabba, and the thing I recall most about everyone around me that night, was that we were all there to WATCH THE GAME. In 2025 it feels more like people are going to an event, it's an excuse to catch up with their mates and "oh did something just happen?"

I don't know if that's more casual fans or the same fans just a bit happier with their lot in life now



2. Intent

The players talk about how the Gabba crowd really gets them up and about etc. But the more games I go to, the more I feel like the reverse is true even more.

But even then I don't think it's the brilliant goals or the high marks that gets the crowd up and about. And I sort of came to realise this when I was at Lang Park the other week when the Broncos played the Warriors.

I'll paint the picture a bit. Glorious sunny Saturday arvo, 60 minutes or so gone, Broncos lead I think 20-12 or something, Warriors are coming back, everyone's a bit nervous. Anyway we have an average set of 6 before kicking from just behind halfway. The kick's coming down towards our end where we are behind the goals. All day long our blokes have just been jogging through on the kick chase, allowing the receiver to gain a good 10-15m before being tackled.

THIS kick chase tho is different. I have no idea why THIS kick chase, but suddenly there are 5 Broncos all sprinting down the field, like you can literally see them coming, the poor Warriors guy catches the ball 5m from his goal line and suddenly has nowhere to go. He gets swamped immediately, and straight away the crowd, which had been murmuring a bit, is up and about, right into the game. We have a massive defensive set, the Warriors don't get past the 10m line till the 3rd tackle, and end up being forced to kick from well inside their own 30.

On the back of just that one great defensive set, the crowd is fully on edge and pretty raucous for the next 10 minutes, we score on the back of it with about 5 minutes to go which seals victory.

To bring it back to our code, I actually think it's all about DEFENSIVE INTENT, rather than spectacular plays. Think Mitch Robinson throwing himself at opponent after opponent, Charlie Cameron running blokes down from behind, Harris Andrews getting a desperate fist out of bounds despite being completely out of position. The casual fan might not necessarily know why they feel suddenly more involved in the game, but I reckon there's a bit of the subconscious in us that recognises when the effort goes over and above the norm.

That pressure and defensive intent has been lacking a bit from our guys in recent Gabba games, which is why I think crowd involvement might also have been down a bit, independent of scoreboard results.



3. Activations

Dom mentioned that he thought going to Gabba games now feels like going to Broncos games back in the late noughties. My first time at Lang Park for a Broncos game didn't come till many years after that, but one of the absolute blights on going to games there (besides that god-awful song they play after EVERY try), is the way the ground announcer literally starts the "Broncos clap-clap-clap" chants. Like, the game is actually happening! And he starts up with getting the crowd going. It is genuinely disgusting. But it means that there is relatively little opportunity for any organic support to start up from within the crowd itself.

I don't know if this was happening when Dom was going to games, but my original thoughts on this was that now that the genie is out of the bottle, it's going to be very hard to put it back in. ie, if you instruct the announcer to shut up, the crowd will take a good 5-10 years to get the organic support back up and going, so you sort of fear for the atmosphere at games in the meantime.

BUT, I went down to the Gold Coast for our match with the Titans on Sunday night, there was a good portion of travelling Broncos fans (the train I was on was packed), and being an away game, we had to make our own noise for the lads. And we did; plenty of organic Broncos chants. So I have hope that maybe it wouldn't be quite as bad as 5-10 years.

Which brings me back to our AFL activations...

The goal songs.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love a good Country Roads and Hey Baby singalong into the next passage of play as much as the next Lions nuffy. Heck we were even doing it at Docklands on Thursday night. But I wonder that after 5 years of it, is it starting to hinder the organic support which would ordinarily be generated by the crowd itself? Do we actually need the silence after goals to give our fans room to get up and about with a raucous chant and get behind the lads?



I don't have all the answers, but these are the 3 aspects I sort of feel are relevant as to why the atmosphere at our home games has changed a bit this year.

I hope Charlie kicks 6 every game but I'm sick of Country Roads and it's become a bit of a tired cliche where people pretend to be into it but they've probably had enough too.

In fact I think the players' songs after a goal really hinder the atmosphere rather than enhance it.

But I'm not a marketer marketing to nuffies so I don't pretend to have any great psychological insight.

 

[martinson]

Point 1 is 100% how I feel, and I include myself in that bucket. I think as a successful team the season feels nothing like seeding to me. I don't feel nearly as invested as I did in the lead up to our flag because I know the real thing starts in the back end of the year. Friday feels like the first I am genuinely buzzing about. The real stuff starts now.

The only time I reckon I've been genuinely uptight and a bit stressed before a game was the 2004 GF because history was staring us in the face and I knew some of our guys were cooked.

Too much success often breeds anxiety.

After only the one flag we know we're at the business end now and if we falter there are good reasons and we go again next year.

 

[TS13]

Gamestyles evolve. What we were doing in 2023 and 2024 was a slight evolution of the hawthorn football method. It worked well for its time, but once 2025 rolled along, it was clear that we were off and we only got by on talent, not through system. I've never seen Fagan more displeased with the first half of the season than i did this year. He was even more upbeat last year when we were 13th, because he saw our system as something that was working. The way we played in the first half of the season was obviously not going to stack up in finals and credit to Fagan, he saw that and decided to flip the switch and try something new. The SEN analysis was a great insight into how different we are now, because our new gamestyle aims to punish you on the turnover at a much faster rate. And because we're more frantic in our movement, we are causing more errors that lead into turnovers without having to tackle at all. Speed of defence coupled with a quick handball game in the middle is what defines us now and its something that not only has added a new dimension to our gameplan, but it makes it harder for teams to figure us out. We were predictable at the start of the year, and now we're not.

To add to this, i think Goodwin pointed out on one of the other footy shows that our chaotic style is our biggest strength, as it makes us very difficult to plan for, because there is no set game plan that you are preparing against in the lead up to a game vs the Lions. Thought that was interesting coming from an opposition coach, and backs up what you are saying here as well.

 

[Elixuh]

To add to this, i think Goodwin pointed out on one of the other footy shows that our chaotic style is our biggest strength, as it makes us very difficult to plan for, because there is no set game plan that you are preparing against in the lead up to a game vs the Lions. Thought that was interesting coming from an opposition coach, and backs up what you are saying here as well.

Yeah, the joke is on those critics who say Fagan doesn’t have a plan B.

There isn’t even a plan A.

 

[Section 5]

Six games CD have mentioned as a big change.
It certainly is not just in style. That's 35% of games played this season being a new style.

Was the change planned or was it the opposition we met in those 6 games.
Probably a bit of both.

For quite a few years we have gone into that tempo game style then moved forward when something opened up or we just had to move it on.
This style won us a lot of games over the years but no premiership.

Last year we found ourselves well down against GWS in the semifinal and all looked lost.
From that point on it was all out offense to get the win.
Similar with Geelong. We found ourselves 4 goals down again midway through the third, it was all offense to get the win.
The Swans GF it was all offense from the start with some good defense also helping.

New year we had 16 in the rehab group.
I think it was back to a safer (normal) game style again while all players found their fitness level.

Last week against the Blues after 3/4 time we did go back to that mark chip style having a 52-point lead at that time.
I think that was on purpose as you never know when you have to change styles during a game. We may have to this week.
You can practice this at training but way better to do it in a real game