BRAB
Biggest Victim on this Site
- Oct 20, 2014
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- AFL Club
- Brisbane Lions
I think this weekend is yet another important milestone for our club. 2019 was bliss for the club and I think I spent the entire finals series pinching myself. Never had a straight sets exit felt so graceful. At the end of that GWS game, a massive portion of the crowd stayed back to cheer Chris Fagan off. Whilst a lot of the AFL world had written us off as a flash in the pan who couldn’t take it up to the big boys, we knew the truth, we’d arrived, and we’d be here for a while. Questions were asked about how “Charlie Centric” our forward line was and whether recruits like McCarthy could continue to play football uninjured, was McCluggage ready to take the next step? Could Lachie join that upper echelon of midfielders?
Flash forward to 2020. Again, another finals series after finishing in the top 4. Way more expectations this time after we’d potentially locked in the opportunity to play all our finals games at the Gabba. Qualifying final, against the best team in the comp, and we jump them. All is right with the world as all we need to do is take out an ageing Geelong team in the prelim to secure a home grand final, perhaps our only ever home grand final. Unfortunately on that day, our midfield got bullied by a bigger, scarier, meaner midfield, and the rest was history.
This weekend marks our third consecutive finals series and more amazingly, our third consecutive qualifying final. After our start to the year, and our sudden drop off at the backend of the season, I think we can say we’re a bit luckier this year to be in this position. Even though we’ve finished slightly lower this season, I actually think we’ve played our most complete football this year. Our forward line is just fantastic, we’ve absolutely improved out of sight since 2019. Our midfield, although not as strong as the top band of teams, gets the job done most of the time, and our defence looks look when the midfield is doing its job. We’re officially a very good football team though, and it is hard to fathom just how far we’ve come under Chris Fagan. All in all, we’re a strong team that are perhaps prone to some lapses against very powerful midfield units who move the ball very fast.
It is unfortunate then, that we come up against a team with a very powerful midfield unit who can move the ball very fast. Unfortunately, this team can also lock the game down defensively and have enough firepower on their own to put on the score they need to win games. Melbourne are a very, very deserving first placed team, and have spent this season emphatically responding to the hard questions asked of them. The Adelaide Crows aren’t in this finals series, so Melbourne fans have every reason to be confident that this could be their year.
I unfortunately don’t have the football knowledge to give anything more in depth than a milquetoast run through of Melbourne’s prospects, but let’s just cover the obvious points.
For us, our entire midfield has to fire to neutralise Melbourne in the middle. We’ve got a few extra pieces now, and I think an in form Berry actually changes the dynamic quite a bit. I think this could be his opportunity to really remind people why at one point, he was tracking faster than McCluggage.
If we can get the ball into our very dynamic and dangerous forward line enough, I think we can kick a winning score. This game is a classic “best defence vs best offence” kind of game and we could really see some fireworks emerge from it. Cockatoo has added another dimension to our forward line and I’m excited to see what he can do this finals series.
Nights like Saturday are the kinds of nights we’d make up in our heads when we were 10 goals down to a much stronger opponent on a Sunday afternoon in the darker years. We are truly privileged to have seen our young team grow each year, and Saturday will be yet another step on the journey. We can take comfort in the fact that our opponents have undergone a similar, arguably even more painful, journey. No matter what happens this weekend, I think we can take solace in the fact that a group of fans who watched their team mainly s**t it up throughout the 2010’s can finally watch their team come out of the darkness and win some football games.
Another big challenge for us this week against a football team primed to attack our weaknesses. If there’s anything to take away from our team since 2016, it’s that we treat every game as a learning opportunity. I’m excited to see what we’ve learnt since our last clash against Melbourne, and I’m excited to see another chapter written in the story of one of the best Lions teams we’ve ever had the privilege to watch.
Lions by 10.
Flash forward to 2020. Again, another finals series after finishing in the top 4. Way more expectations this time after we’d potentially locked in the opportunity to play all our finals games at the Gabba. Qualifying final, against the best team in the comp, and we jump them. All is right with the world as all we need to do is take out an ageing Geelong team in the prelim to secure a home grand final, perhaps our only ever home grand final. Unfortunately on that day, our midfield got bullied by a bigger, scarier, meaner midfield, and the rest was history.
This weekend marks our third consecutive finals series and more amazingly, our third consecutive qualifying final. After our start to the year, and our sudden drop off at the backend of the season, I think we can say we’re a bit luckier this year to be in this position. Even though we’ve finished slightly lower this season, I actually think we’ve played our most complete football this year. Our forward line is just fantastic, we’ve absolutely improved out of sight since 2019. Our midfield, although not as strong as the top band of teams, gets the job done most of the time, and our defence looks look when the midfield is doing its job. We’re officially a very good football team though, and it is hard to fathom just how far we’ve come under Chris Fagan. All in all, we’re a strong team that are perhaps prone to some lapses against very powerful midfield units who move the ball very fast.
It is unfortunate then, that we come up against a team with a very powerful midfield unit who can move the ball very fast. Unfortunately, this team can also lock the game down defensively and have enough firepower on their own to put on the score they need to win games. Melbourne are a very, very deserving first placed team, and have spent this season emphatically responding to the hard questions asked of them. The Adelaide Crows aren’t in this finals series, so Melbourne fans have every reason to be confident that this could be their year.
I unfortunately don’t have the football knowledge to give anything more in depth than a milquetoast run through of Melbourne’s prospects, but let’s just cover the obvious points.
- Petracca, Oliver and Gawn are the most damaging midfield trio in the competition. I genuinely don’t think we win if they all get on top of us at the same time.
- Melbourne’s 18 team defence is the best in the league.
- Steven May is a thug.
- You can literally never write Melbourne off this season. They don’t seem intimidated at all by winning a game from behind.
For us, our entire midfield has to fire to neutralise Melbourne in the middle. We’ve got a few extra pieces now, and I think an in form Berry actually changes the dynamic quite a bit. I think this could be his opportunity to really remind people why at one point, he was tracking faster than McCluggage.
If we can get the ball into our very dynamic and dangerous forward line enough, I think we can kick a winning score. This game is a classic “best defence vs best offence” kind of game and we could really see some fireworks emerge from it. Cockatoo has added another dimension to our forward line and I’m excited to see what he can do this finals series.
Nights like Saturday are the kinds of nights we’d make up in our heads when we were 10 goals down to a much stronger opponent on a Sunday afternoon in the darker years. We are truly privileged to have seen our young team grow each year, and Saturday will be yet another step on the journey. We can take comfort in the fact that our opponents have undergone a similar, arguably even more painful, journey. No matter what happens this weekend, I think we can take solace in the fact that a group of fans who watched their team mainly s**t it up throughout the 2010’s can finally watch their team come out of the darkness and win some football games.
Another big challenge for us this week against a football team primed to attack our weaknesses. If there’s anything to take away from our team since 2016, it’s that we treat every game as a learning opportunity. I’m excited to see what we’ve learnt since our last clash against Melbourne, and I’m excited to see another chapter written in the story of one of the best Lions teams we’ve ever had the privilege to watch.
Lions by 10.
very serious honest reading then in among it all was one little line....."
