2026 Pre-Season Thread

[Tom14]

I get that you're defending the Lions, but he played over 100 games for my team despite being restricted by injuries throughout his career. He was hard and tough but he was not known as a sniper, in an era of snipers like Dermott and Dipper, who I watched knock our best players multiple times.

That’s great but he coaches boring football that has ruined the game.

 

[SonofSuperboot]

Absolutely he was a sniper which he admits himself.

He was a disappointing player considering the expectations when we got hold of him. Always injured , a bit slow , nothing special skill wise. But he was a smart sort of smart arse who's carved a career out of what he learnt as a player

To compare him with Derm and Dipper is just unfair imo. It's like comparing Mt.Everest to Mt. Baw Baw.

I disagree. He wasn't a superstar but he was pretty electric. Saw him take quite a few big grabs at princes park, watching with my dad and uncle. he had that sort of dense, coiled muscle and sinew that he could burst and just cannon off players. A player doesnt have to be a complete footballer to be worth watching, and Lyon was worth watching.

 

[Lace Out]

I disagree. He wasn't a superstar but he was pretty electric. Saw him take quite a few big grabs at princes park, watching with my dad and uncle. he had that sort of dense, coiled muscle and sinew that he could burst and just cannon off players. A player doesnt have to be a complete footballer to be worth watching, and Lyon was worth watching.

Could have done without the Jeff Hogg flashback

 

[martinson]

Could have done without the Jeff Hogg flashback

Oh dear , yes.

One of the highlights of Roscoe's career was that he took over the famous No.29 worn by the Flea.

So we initially had high hopes for him.

 

[morsie]

Oh dear , yes.

One of the highlights of Roscoe's career was that he took over the famous No.29 worn by the Flea.

So we initially had high hopes for him.

Yep cruelled by injury.He wasn't a sniper but enjoyed hurting opponents often to his own detriment.

 

[BrainOfMorbius]

In 1995, when the Bears made the finals for the first time, I travelled down to Melbourne with a group of supporters organised by the club. Great trip! We got a private box at the MCG with food and drink supplied, and a special lunch with a guest player, who turned out to be Ross Lyon. He'd joined the club that off season and was handy in the two games he played before succumbing to injury. He was good value in the interview, telling everyone how much he'd enjoyed the year and was sorry he was that he was going to miss the club's first final, but was looking forward to having another go in 1996 and repaying the faith the club had showed in him.

Of course history will tell you that we narrowly lost the game and Ross announced his retirement a couple of weeks later.

So I've never taken anything much he's said since very seriously. Ross is for Ross and no-one else.

 

[The Flying Belgian]

He was good value in the interview, telling everyone how much he'd enjoyed the year

I saw him absolutely faced at Treasury Casino one night. He looked like he was enjoying his time up here.

 

[SonofSuperboot]

In 1995, when the Bears made the finals for the first time, I travelled down to Melbourne with a group of supporters organised by the club. Great trip! We got a private box at the MCG with food and drink supplied, and a special lunch with a guest player, who turned out to be Ross Lyon. He'd joined the club that off season and was handy in the two games he played before succumbing to injury. He was good value in the interview, telling everyone how much he'd enjoyed the year and was sorry he was that he was going to miss the club's first final, but was looking forward to having another go in 1996 and repaying the faith the club had showed in him.

Of course history will tell you that we narrowly lost the game and Ross announced his retirement a couple of weeks later.

So I've never taken anything much he's said since very seriously. Ross is for Ross and no-one else.

I didn't expect to be defending Ross Lyon's playing days, odd how some weeks work out. I just liked watching him play, but I guess if people were expecting him to be a key player to drive the lions forward, they would have been disappointed. Though I should point out that being blighted by injury is not a personal failing, And i dont recall much animosity for him at the time among the fitzroy crowd
On another note, I watched the 2001 grand final on kayo recently. Ive seen others on replay, but for some reason never that match. I counted 6 future coaches playing in that game, 5 of them still at it. Voss, the scott twins, Hardwick, McCrae (who I only saw get one kick, though it was a good one) and Hird. I wonder if any grand final has had more future coaches playing in it? Answers on the back of an envelope

 

[Grasshopper17]

I didn't expect to be defending Ross Lyon's playing days, odd how some weeks work out. I just liked watching him play, but I guess if people were expecting him to be a key player to drive the lions forward, they would have been disappointed. Though I should point out that being blighted by injury is not a personal failing, And i dont recall much animosity for him at the time among the fitzroy crowd
On another note, I watched the 2001 grand final on kayo recently. Ive seen others on replay, but for some reason never that match. I counted 6 future coaches playing in that game, 5 of them still at it. Voss, the scott twins, Hardwick, McCrae (who I only saw get one kick, though it was a good one) and Hird. I wonder if any grand final has had more future coaches playing in it? Answers on the back of an envelope

I think the 2004 Grand Final might have that one covered.

 

[Lockie]

I like Ross Lyon, as he was a fave of mine back in the Fitzroy days. One of those weirdly solid players like Ablett Snr that hurt opposition players. But he does go on with a lot of waffle, much of it just shit-stirring. I'm not that fussed by it all. I think Fages probably could have made his point without referring to TDK and Nasiah directly, but perhaps after all the St Kilda bellyaching about Brisbane he felt like firing one back. It also stopped people talking about Neale.
Ross pretending to not know what was Fagan said was just theatre, as was him pretending to take the moral high ground. When you coach st kilda, you have to be good at making excuses, and Ross is one of the better ones at it, with all the tricks, and distractions, attacking the questioner, etc. He'll be under a lot of pressure this year with their big spending. However I never liked st kilda as a club. they've made a lot of bad decisions over the years, one of which was to can Stan Alves, a mate of my dad's (they played footy together back in the Edi-Aspendale league), despite him taking them to their first grand final in years, and sacked him after he took them to a semi the next year. Their bed is of their own making. Never liked Riewoldt either. Argued against us winning pretty much every match of the three final series.

Lyon was also one of my favourite players and a much loved player with the Fitzroy supporters and often liked a scrap with other teams players. Agree he had always been a shit stirrer and likes to pot others and distract the conversation from his own actions and not take responsibility for them. He likes to play the underdog and to rally the troops that the problems are due to others getting something that they are not. He would make a great politician, However I wish Fagan hadn’t made those comments - I understand what he was trying to say but it’s their decision who and what they pay within their salary cap and they’ll live or die by it. Given every club is going to want to measure themselves against us why give another club/players even more ammunition. Will be the first Melbourne game for us Vic based supporters so expecting a hostile crowd.

 

[Pride of lions]

Don’t forget Leppitsch

 

[Grasshopper17]

Sitting at the game with Grasshopper17 last night and for me it was a little hard to take too much away from that game.
So many players being played out of position and swapping and changing all night long, Carlton clearly running harder than us all night really.
Midfield appeared to start all quarters with Fort, Neale, Dunkley and Ashcroft, so a decent combo but were quite often beaten easily and the ball getting out the front of stoppage very easily without any pressure so thanks a concern and the general lack of run and pressure around the field but I guess it was just a trial game so as I said at the start it’s a little hard to take too much out of the game.
A few of the young boys showed some promise and Linc didn’t work in the backline but I thought Coleman looked good up forward.

I guess we've seen over the last few years that probably the most obvious indicator of whether our players are mentally dialled in for a game is whether the tackles are sticking or not. This is not a publicly available stat (for any game, let alone a match sim), but we can usually tell can't we. We even commented after the first goal which took 15 seconds, the ease at which that came might help us become a bit complacent, and that certainly seemed to transpire throughout the game. Whether it would have happened regardless is something to ponder. Either way I reckon we played with more intensity in the intra-club game I went to.

We do have a tendency to pick and choose when we extract the digit and when we choose to just coast along a bit, and the early signs are that this is not about to change. Which might not be a bad thing - it's hard to play at maximum intensity for a full season. Essendon 2000 was probably the closest any team has ever come to that, and arguably the saying "the brightest candle burns the fastest" was borne out by the trajectory of that team. On the flipside, the longer you go playing in bursts, the harder it gets to rouse yourselves when it is necessary, and it's possible that may hold us back in 2026.

My main observation which would probably not have been as evident watching on TV, is that our forward line/mix was a bit clunky as forecast. The first thing I noticed was that whenever we got the ball to within say 70m of goal, all the forwards would bolt back towards goal. This basically compelled the ball carrier to bang it long to the teeth of goal, making it easy for Carlton's interceptors to set up in their preferred spots and pick us off far too regularly. Rarely did we get anyone leading back to the ball carrier, which was probably not aided by the tendency of the ball carriers to "get it in there quickly" rather than waiting for something to develop inside 50. Other times, our midfielders had the tendency to see that space inside 50 and, instead of doing their bit to hold that space open for leading forwards, they rushed in there themselves, calling for the ball. Nature indeed abhors a vacuum.

We certainly didn't see much from Oscar Allen attempting to change that status quo with regards to any real leadership of note, so as far as I can tell, I don't really care about titles or ages or leadership positions etc: it is absolutely going to be Logan Morris' forward line for the foreseeable future. If he tells someone to do something anywhere inside 70 they should absolutely be doing it. In his absence I thought Kai was terrific... did all he could to keep us in the game when it was slipping and our scoring opportunities were drying up. But it's hard to lead a forward line playing as a small, and probably also Kai's reputation as a bit of a loose cannon might have a (subconscious) impact on how much any of his advice/instruction is heeded in our forward line.

Apart from that, you all saw what we saw... lots of fumbling and balls just clean slipping through blokes' hands, particularly overhead, and we got smashed at centre bounces after the first 15 mins really. But also we took a LOT of overtly risky, even suicidal, options by foot coming out of our back half, which I'm perfectly fine with in a praccy game. Take the lessons, recalibrate the decision-making process and be good to go for Round 1.

On the flipside, the over-handballing in our back half is something I'm wary of, because we did see this creep into our play at stages last year, even in the Qualifying Final, and I always feel like when we see this happening, it's because we haven't been able to get our kick-mark game going in our back half. We saw this a fair bit on Wednesday night, and then the longer the game went, a lot of long kicking down the line, usually to Carlton's interceptors, which was another sure sign our forwards weren't working coherently to create space for each other. Hopefully that will come with time - it will need to.

But apparently Leppa was at the game on Wednesday night. So who knows, maybe we were foxing. I hope we were foxing.

Looks like Gold Coast were even worse in their scratch match, admittedly understrength by the look, but you would expect a response on Thursday night, similar to their performance against us last year 6 days after getting smashed by Adelaide. They won't want to go into Opening Round with two outings like that.

 

[Section 5]

The format last year was pretty strange. At least this year we had a full game v Blues at home next up Suns at home
Below one of the comments as a format reminder

"Bro wtf is this I just watched gold coast vs Collingwood then Collingwood vs Brisbane than Brisbane vs gold coast suns like wtf is going on"

Target Levi

 

[Perrip]

BT backing us as Premiership favourites. The club is really committed to making our media critics back us.

JA: Who wins this year?
BT: Depth of list suggests the Brisbane Lions given they had five to six really good players out of last year’s grand final who have returned.

 

[rye]

The format last year was pretty strange. At least this year we had a full game v Blues at home next up Suns at home
Below one of the comments as a format reminder

"Bro wtf is this I just watched gold coast vs Collingwood then Collingwood vs Brisbane than Brisbane vs gold coast suns like wtf is going on"

Target Levi

i think last year this was due to fremantle sitting out that round of scratch matches because they were playing in the all stars game, so there was an uneven number of sides to try organise with.

fwiw i didnt mind the format.

 

[Dalions]

I guess we've seen over the last few years that probably the most obvious indicator of whether our players are mentally dialled in for a game is whether the tackles are sticking or not. This is not a publicly available stat (for any game, let alone a match sim), but we can usually tell can't we. We even commented after the first goal which took 15 seconds, the ease at which that came might help us become a bit complacent, and that certainly seemed to transpire throughout the game. Whether it would have happened regardless is something to ponder. Either way I reckon we played with more intensity in the intra-club game I went to.

We do have a tendency to pick and choose when we extract the digit and when we choose to just coast along a bit, and the early signs are that this is not about to change. Which might not be a bad thing - it's hard to play at maximum intensity for a full season. Essendon 2000 was probably the closest any team has ever come to that, and arguably the saying "the brightest candle burns the fastest" was borne out by the trajectory of that team. On the flipside, the longer you go playing in bursts, the harder it gets to rouse yourselves when it is necessary, and it's possible that may hold us back in 2026.

My main observation which would probably not have been as evident watching on TV, is that our forward line/mix was a bit clunky as forecast. The first thing I noticed was that whenever we got the ball to within say 70m of goal, all the forwards would bolt back towards goal. This basically compelled the ball carrier to bang it long to the teeth of goal, making it easy for Carlton's interceptors to set up in their preferred spots and pick us off far too regularly. Rarely did we get anyone leading back to the ball carrier, which was probably not aided by the tendency of the ball carriers to "get it in there quickly" rather than waiting for something to develop inside 50. Other times, our midfielders had the tendency to see that space inside 50 and, instead of doing their bit to hold that space open for leading forwards, they rushed in there themselves, calling for the ball. Nature indeed abhors a vacuum.

We certainly didn't see much from Oscar Allen attempting to change that status quo with regards to any real leadership of note, so as far as I can tell, I don't really care about titles or ages or leadership positions etc: it is absolutely going to be Logan Morris' forward line for the foreseeable future. If he tells someone to do something anywhere inside 70 they should absolutely be doing it. In his absence I thought Kai was terrific... did all he could to keep us in the game when it was slipping and our scoring opportunities were drying up. But it's hard to lead a forward line playing as a small, and probably also Kai's reputation as a bit of a loose cannon might have a (subconscious) impact on how much any of his advice/instruction is heeded in our forward line.

Apart from that, you all saw what we saw... lots of fumbling and balls just clean slipping through blokes' hands, particularly overhead, and we got smashed at centre bounces after the first 15 mins really. But also we took a LOT of overtly risky, even suicidal, options by foot coming out of our back half, which I'm perfectly fine with in a praccy game. Take the lessons, recalibrate the decision-making process and be good to go for Round 1.

On the flipside, the over-handballing in our back half is something I'm wary of, because we did see this creep into our play at stages last year, even in the Qualifying Final, and I always feel like when we see this happening, it's because we haven't been able to get our kick-mark game going in our back half. We saw this a fair bit on Wednesday night, and then the longer the game went, a lot of long kicking down the line, usually to Carlton's interceptors, which was another sure sign our forwards weren't working coherently to create space for each other. Hopefully that will come with time - it will need to.

But apparently Leppa was at the game on Wednesday night. So who knows, maybe we were foxing. I hope we were foxing.

Looks like Gold Coast were even worse in their scratch match, admittedly understrength by the look, but you would expect a response on Thursday night, similar to their performance against us last year 6 days after getting smashed by Adelaide. They won't want to go into Opening Round with two outings like that.

I thought our ball movement from the back half was very poor and slow mostly, which makes it very difficult to get good ball movement into the forward line and no space to lead into as a result.
But there was certainly occasions where the forwards could have lead up at the ball carrier rather than trying to get the cheapy out the back.

 

[Perrip]

Oscar Allen’s year from hell: The secret injury, dark West Coast days and why he chose Brisbane - Jay Clark

“I actually hurt the patella tendon in the first game of last year,” Allen told Code Sports.
“I did that in round one and I played the whole year with it.
“I never told anyone about it because it was not important, but I was playing all year with a patella tendon that needed to be surgically-repaired.
“And people were saying ‘He’s not jumping at the ball’. Well, I couldn’t jump.”
So, why didn’t he say something about it?
As co-captain, Allen said he felt a responsibility. An obligation to his young team in a tough spot.

 

[Elixuh]

Oscar Allen’s year from hell: The secret injury, dark West Coast days and why he chose Brisbane - Jay Clark

I’m glad we were able to save Oscar from that hell hole and bad guy Don Pyke.

 

[Nunez]

I’m glad we were able to save Oscar from that hell hole and bad guy Don Pyke.

100%. I also think it's funny reading some of the comments about his performance in the scratch match. In what World would a guy who has been through the injuries he's been through give everything in a game like that.

The fact he's also been voted into the leadership group in his first pre season with the Lions speaks volumes. There is no way known that happens unless the players and coaches have faith in him.

 

[SonofSuperboot]

100%. I also think it's funny reading some of the comments about his performance in the scratch match. In what World would a guy who has been through the injuries he's been through give everything in a game like that.

The fact he's also been voted into the leadership group in his first pre season with the Lions speaks volumes. There is no way known that happens unless the players and coaches have faith in him.

It is a shame that we won't get another practice match into Oscar, as i think we need to make some adjustments to our delivery to make best use out of him. He's the most powerful on the lead, like a dunstall. We need to look for it and time it into space in front of him. I think we're good at spreading, as we want to isolate him one on one, so if they want to put a blocker in front it'll either free up a different forward, or pull their spare into defence. As long as were not just launching it up to pack with oscar, morris and gallop all competing. We'll just have to do the hard way, adjusting on the run in season. But it's not like we haven't had to do that before. I'm looking forward to seeing how he's going by mid-season. I have a feeling it'll take a few matches to sort out everyone's forward roles, though hopefully we can win anyway.
A few people were mentioning a lot of media pundits backing the lions as favourites this year. One thing to remember is they're all pretty fickle. I recall lot of them did similar at the start of '25, only for many to go off us when we had a few losses and the Crows and the Cats were flying. We've never led the ladder for any significant stretch, and honestly I'd be surprised if we do in 2026. but we are a team that in finals, as Fages puts it, finds a way.

 

[briztoon]

It is a shame that we won't get another practice match into Oscar, as i think we need to make some adjustments to our delivery to make best use out of him. He's the most powerful on the lead, like a dunstall. We need to look for it and time it into space in front of him. I think we're good at spreading, as we want to isolate him one on one, so if they want to put a blocker in front it'll either free up a different forward, or pull their spare into defence. As long as were not just launching it up to pack with oscar, morris and gallop all competing. We'll just have to do the hard way, adjusting on the run in season. But it's not like we haven't had to do that before. I'm looking forward to seeing how he's going by mid-season. I have a feeling it'll take a few matches to sort out everyone's forward roles, though hopefully we can win anyway.
A few people were mentioning a lot of media pundits backing the lions as favourites this year. One thing to remember is they're all pretty fickle. I recall lot of them did similar at the start of '25, only for many to go off us when we had a few losses and the Crows and the Cats were flying. We've never led the ladder for any significant stretch, and honestly I'd be surprised if we do in 2026. but we are a team that in finals, as Fages puts it, finds a way.

Oscar, at his best is a lead up forward. Similar to Gunston.

Probably one of the main areas missing from our style of play, has been creating space for a forward to lead in to for an uncontested mark.

Also not a style of play Noble ever believed in, that held up to finals type football.

 

[mpal6]

Oscar, at his best is a lead up forward. Similar to Gunston.

Probably one of the main areas missing from our style of play, has been creating space for a forward to lead in to for an uncontested mark.

Also not a style of play Noble ever believed in, that held up to finals type football.

Ermm, I'll temper my expectations then. Our style of play didn't suit Gunston in particular and lead up forwards in general. May be it'll take a year or two for both Oscar and our mids / half forwards to adjust.

 

[Viceregal]

Oscar, at his best is a lead up forward. Similar to Gunston.

Probably one of the main areas missing from our style of play, has been creating space for a forward to lead in to for an uncontested mark.

Also not a style of play Noble ever believed in, that held up to finals type football.

Hopefully we will embrace/trust Oscar more than we did Jack ... this time feels like a more deliberate choice 'though...

 

[Nathan Barley]

Logan Morris a perfectly fine lead up forward we utilised well last season

All depends on quick ball movement and/or precise kicking

 

[SonofSuperboot]

Ermm, I'll temper my expectations then. Our style of play didn't suit Gunston in particular and lead up forwards in general. May be it'll take a year or two for both Oscar and our mids / half forwards to adjust.

One thing is that if we play 3 tall forwards, oscar might not even get the big key back(s), they might keep them for Gallup or Morris, or even Draper or the Fortress if we go with the 2 ruckman. So that might give oscar an opponent he can beat in the air, not just on the lead even though that is his strength. He's more solid than Gunstan, who relies more on leads and craft than physical contests.
I remember it did take a bit of time for Daniher and Hipwood to sort themselves out and not get in each others way flying for the same ball, but they did it eventually. Thought Hippy played his role really well in the end, dragging their defence out of shape and creating space in the 50. My prediction is that (if he can avoid his rotten luck with injuries last year) it'll be Kai that has the big early season, as these big bodies create more opportunities and headaches for opposition defences that he can find space in. One area I think we can improve is when we have a mark or a freekick outside the 50 , how often we ignore good leads and end up kicking it up to contest. With Oscar, Kai, and Charlie, I hope we at least look for them and chance our kicks a bit more. Even if not all of them come off, it'll create more danger in the opposition backs minds, forcing them away from contest to cover these leads, which will benefit the talls if we mix it up.