THINGS are looking up for Lions coach Michael Voss - he is winning back the support of Queensland's AFL public as well as having claimed the scalps of Essendon and Geelong this season.
Despite the inability of Brisbane to string together wins to advance their finals race claims, couriermail.com.au’s poll conducted yesterday and today revealed a lift in the number of respondents who believe he should keep his job for next year.
Voss is understood to be closing in on a two-year contract extension at the Gabba and extra financial support for the cash-strapped Lions football department. Two months ago, only 35 per cent of respondents to a couriermail.com.au poll said Voss should be Lions coach next year.
A second poll, in light of The Courier-Mail's exclusive story that the Lions board are coming to the conclusion that Voss warrants more time and greater expenditure in player development and coaching, shows 49 per cent of readers who took the poll believe he should get a new deal.
"At the end of the day they are board decisions (to reappoint the coach). I think Vossy has done a really good job," skipper Jonathan Brown said. "We started a fair way back a couple of years ago but a lot of the younger players are really coming on. It's a pretty exciting future going forward."
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Lions coach Michael Voss knows the score. In the preseason and perhaps the first half of the year we talk about finals standard or potential top eight sides. But when 16 rounds have passed, potential no longer counts, only performances do. "I don't even know how you can possibly justify even remotely thinking about it (finals), talking about it, even entertaining the idea. We've had our first back- to-back wins this year," Voss said. "I think we'll be a top eight side when we're in the top eight."
Voss did say he was happy for his side to dream of finals action, after all there's little point in a player lacing up the boots if they didn't. But he knows there is little satisfaction just making up the numbers and the gap between Brisbane's best and worst was too wide to be a force in September. "They can cast their mind over it if they like," he said. "What I hope they get more excitement out of is the fact we've started to increase our pressure, our work around the ball and guys are taking real accountability for the performance of the team. "If we can generate that excitement on a weekly basis and at training ... those things might be viable. "Certainly no viable until you have an appetite to do that week after week, and we haven't proven that yet. That's still something we have to get done."
What a trouper he is.
Through all the negative stuff of the last few years ,he has always maintained his dignity.
A true Lion through and through.
Love him to bits.
I think it would have been much better form to give him til the end of the season, regardless of the context around potential replacements, etc. To me, doing it 3 weeks short of the end of the season robs him of his dignity. Just my opinion, obviously.
Yeah, just read that. I do take back my stab at the club. Not the nice things that I said about Vossy though. Not reeling those ones in.
