Preview Round 11, Brisbane Lions v Western Bulldogs, The Gabba, Sat August 8th 7.40pm

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Wow, let’s just move on, shall we?



Round 11 - Brisbane Lions v Western Bulldogs

Saturday 8th August 7.40pm

The Gabba


Last time they met -


Interestingly last years Round 20 match up was on August the 4th. This year’s Round 11 match up, is 4 days later in the Calendar year on August the 8th 🤔 Strange year it has been.

Brisbane had broken many hoodoos last season (West Coast, Sydney and Adelaide at the top of the list) and this was another chance. The Bulldogs had won the past five matches between the clubs, including all four with Chris Fagan as Coach. The last time the Lions had tasted success was the final round of the 2015 season when an eight-point victory helped them avoid the wooden spoon.

This 14.14 (98) to 11.14 (80) - Lions win ended the Bulldogs run of 5 straight wins against the Lions.

First year Captain Dayne Zorko was injured midway through the Third Quarter (Hamstring).

Zorkos departure, with just three regular-season games remaining before finals, coincided with a Bulldogs’ revival as the visitors rallied from 43 points down to trail by just 17 at the final change.

Early fourth-quarter goals to Eric Hipwood and Charlie Cameron looked to have sealed it, however the Bulldogs came again when Marcus Bontempelli (just off the bench) pulled it to a 17-point game.

But Hipwood replied with his second goal of the quarter to ensure Brisbane’s eighth win from nine home games in the season.

Bontempelli (35 disposals) was influential for the Bulldogs, while Jack Macrae finished with 45 disposals. Aaron Naughton kicked 2.2.


Game highlights -

PreviewPreview6:38Brisbane v Western Bulldogs Highlights | Round 20, 2019 | AFLYouTube · AFLAug 4, 2019


Head to Head since the Bears merged with Fitzroy -

Summary



[TD valign="top"]Since 1997[/TD]
[TD valign="top"]All
Games[/TD]
[TD valign="top"]Last 5
Games[/TD]
[TD valign="top"]Highest
Score[/TD]
[TD valign="top"]Lowest
Score[/TD]
[TD valign="top"]Biggest
Win[/TD]

[TD valign="top"]Brisbane Lions[/TD]
[TD valign="top"]19[/TD]
[TD valign="top"]1[/TD]
[TD valign="top"]170[/TD]
[TD valign="top"]44[/TD]
[TD valign="top"]84[/TD]

[TD valign="top"]Western Bulldogs[/TD]
[TD valign="top"]20[/TD]
[TD valign="top"]4[/TD]
[TD valign="top"]177[/TD]
[TD valign="top"]56[/TD]
[TD valign="top"]91[/TD]

The Lions have a chance to even the All Time Ledger with a win in this game to make it 20 wins a piece.

Players to watch -

Bontempelli always seems to tear us a new one and Jack Macrae also, although not as damaging with his disposal as The Bont. And with Dunkley now back we will have to watch him carefully too.

With Naughton a chance to come back for this one?? Andrews will have his hands full but their biggest threat in their forward line (to this point in the season) would be Josh Bruce and Mitch Wallis at the moment. And a resting Bont and English.

We shouldn’t need to go into this one with any more than 2 talls in defense as they are playing a pretty small forward line at the moment.

We will also have to watch Johannisen’s run and Caleb Daniel’s disposal skills.

And generally their disposal by handball in and around the contest is a danger (similar to Richmond) so we will need to play pretty tight at the contest and not let them get it to the outside to use their speed, force them to kick long to a contest where we will have them covered.


For us -

Charlie Cameron kicked 4 against The Dogs in the Round 20 game last year.

But they will have their hands full as we have many players regularly contributing to the score board both forwards and the resting mids.

The Brownlow favourite Lachie Neale has been in Stellar touch and will continue on his merry way. Lyons has been one of our better performers in the middle this year too.
Both Andrews and Gardiner have been great in Defense.


Run of form (Doggies) -

The inconsistent Doggies are currently sitting in 8th spot on the ladder with a 5/5 record and a percentage of 92.2.

With only 2 games played in the round to date they could fall as far as 13th on ladder before this weekends game depending on other teams results.

Run of form (Lions) -

After a big loss to Richmond the Lions are currently still in 2nd spot on the ladder with a 7/3 record and a percentage of 117.9.

We could fall to 3rd if St Kilda beat the Suns.

West coast have a bye.

Last 5 -

Image.jpeg


Image_1.jpeg



In Conclusion -

If we were to bring our A Game??
Hard to see the Dogs, on current form, pushing us too hard if we can play anywhere near our best but after 4 games in 14 days and 3 of those games in 9 days and after a pretty heavy defeat against last year premiers, our confidence will be rocked a little.

They cracked in Hard against Port, but will have an extra days rest before the game.
One thing is for sure, they will not go away and will keep on coming in a similar fashion to last years game.

We should welcome back a few best 22 players in Rich, Birchall and McStay. I would also bring Eagles in as Ruck support for O to add a bit more experience and mongrel around the ball. And Young Bez to help lock the ball in our forward half which we were unable to do against Richmond.

Great to be back at the Gabba
After 5 weeks/games away, the boys will be itching to get back.

Bring your voices people, We are gonna need it to lift the boys.

It won’t be easy but Lions in a pretty close one by 12 points 🦁
 

Dylan12

Brownlow Medallist
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Nice preview Dlions :thumbsu:

I think the goose has been cooked and we'll be overran by the Dogs all because of the idiocy by not resting some of our prime movers for tonight's game.

Also worth remembering our opposition also would've had an extra day's break on the back of two, four day's break.
 

Lion_LegacyXL

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Aug 22, 2019
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Positives:
- Bulldogs have to travel from Adelaide to Brisbane with just an extra days rest.
- They are in bad/average form.
- We play them at The Gabba, haven't lost a H/A game there since round 5 last year.
- We almost always bounce back after a loss.
- We haven't lost consecutive H/A games since rounds 4/5 last year.
- Rich, McStay, Birchall,Lester expected back into the squad.
 

LIONS08

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Positives:
- Bulldogs have to travel from Adelaide to Brisbane with just an extra days rest.
- They are in bad/average form.
- We play them at The Gabba, haven't lost a H/A game there since round 5 last year.
- We almost always bounce back after a loss.
- We haven't lost consecutive H/A games since rounds 4/5 last year.
- Rich, McStay, Birchall,Lester expected back into the squad.
Also, the dogs didn’t rest any players this week! They are in the same boat as us!
 
- Rich, McStay, Birchall,Lester expected back into the squad.
I can't help but think this was why we didn't wholesale "rest" players for the Richmond game.

We made four changes the week before, and one change for the Richmond game. Surely those five shouldn't be spent after two games, unless the thinking is that every player we bring in from the reserves would be equally spent.

We now (hopefully) bring back in four players. Unless the punters wanted us to be completely uncompetitive and bring in our entire reserves with up to eight changes (as opposed to sporadically uncompetitive with four) we probably netted the same amount of resting players as if we'd planned a rotation.
 

M Malice

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Pressure must be on as the Dogs are a similar side to the Tigers albeit not on the same level. They like to handball out of congestion and beat you with fast play and in the Bont they have that star factor that we seem to struggle with.
 
I can't help but think this was why we didn't wholesale "rest" players for the Richmond game.

We made four changes the week before, and one change for the Richmond game. Surely those five shouldn't be spent after two games, unless the thinking is that every player we bring in from the reserves would be equally spent.

We now (hopefully) bring back in four players. Unless the punters wanted us to be completely uncompetitive and bring in our entire reserves with up to eight changes (as opposed to sporadically uncompetitive with four) we probably netted the same amount of resting players as if we'd planned a rotation.

I suspect the coach was looking to break the Richmond hoodoo during home and away season. If it was up to me, I'd do the exact same thing as you don't want this total consecutive losses hanging over your head in finals time. We went in with the best available team, too bad it didn't work out.

While Lester is doing a really good job this season, I hope we continue to keep playing Payne. He's our long term fix and we'll need him come finals.
 

royboys4eva

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Rich - Lester - Birchall - McStay all come back in. Mathieson either comes in for Robbo who is either busted up or poorly out of form or CEY.. McCluggage looks sore and isn't having his usual high standard impact. Do we rest him ? Give Coleman or Robertson a game. Play Zac Bailey on the wing. Ah Chee up forward.
 

Maroon Monsoon

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Thank God its at the gabba again, with all these away games at metricon fatigue was really starting to set in. For the fans, that is, weve been down in gold Coast so often it feels like a throwback to the early bear days.

I reckon one of the challenges we had last night was bedding in the 20% or so of the team that had swapped from our regulars over the past few weeks, so hopefully any changes are just to bring in members of our normal best 22 to at least deliver good chemistry easily without players needing to think it through. if Mitch needs resting berry the younger plays with similar mongrel and would be a good in, other than that I hope were just bringing in rich and birch (who should pair well and relieve pressure on witho) and dan. Would have Payne, ballandeen and cam (injured) as the outs.

Last night wasn't as negative as the score board showed, felt more like it should have been about 3-4 goals loss so hopefully we bring the fire and turn it around next week!
 
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Nov 26, 2012
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I think the ins are probably easy with McStay, Rich and Birch all straight back in.

Lester is a bit more of a maybe - pending matchups I think I would be ok with giving Payne another game

Either Skinner or Ballenden out for McStay. Not sure which way we should go there. I think Skinner was playing his role but neither were great.

Rayner will obviously miss but beyond that its a tough to see the other outs. If its out of the back line at least one of Witherden/Answerth gets dropped. If we rest some one like Robbo then we need to push someone onto the wing. Could Witherden do that?
 
i went down to the Suns v dogs game. The dogs were very good at using their bodies to push the suns player under the mark and having a player behind the pack to pick up the ball and go.

Last night we saw our boys pushed around, so I’m a bit concerned about that happening to us again this week.

We had plenty of big bodies so maybe it’s a technique or an intent issue.
 
Apr 4, 2015
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I'd bring in Eagles ,Birch,Rich, McStay , and two of Mathieson , Hinge and T Berry.

Outs get rid of a couple of talls ,Rayner and whoever doesn't come up that well from last night's game. Looking at Clug and Robbo as examples hard to see how last night's game would be of any benefit to them
 

Sherrinator

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I think the ins are probably easy with McStay, Rich and Birch all straight back in.

Lester is a bit more of a maybe - pending matchups I think I would be ok with giving Payne another game

Either Skinner or Ballenden out for McStay. Not sure which way we should go there. I think Skinner was playing his role but neither were great.

Rayner will obviously miss but beyond that its a tough to see the other outs. If its out of the back line at least one of Witherden/Answerth gets dropped. If we rest some one like Robbo then we need to push someone onto the wing. Could Witherden do that?

Christensen for Rayner?
 
Nunez has written and recorded 15 inspirational tracks, in the style of Justine Clarke. These will be played at training and they will immediately address our problems with goal kicking. Players will be in their ‘happy place’ when shooting at the goals and our issues with accuracy will be resolved.

Nunez’s Set List

I Like To Goal
Scoreboard Face
The Goal Square Family
Sausage Roll
Goal Hippy Goal
It’s Starting To Rain Goals
If I Had A Set Shot
Let’s Kick Goals
Off to the Coleman Medal
The Straight Through The Middle Song
I’m Kicking Goals Today
Goals
The Dancing Celebration
Friends Scoring Goals
I Am A ... Goal Scorer

Footscray are in real trouble.
 
Nov 26, 2018
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Tickets have been released on your MyLions account woohoo.
Thanks for that.
I am in Section 4 so happy with that

For those that want to check out the section. The Gabba 360 degrees view map is working again

 

FLVanLandingham

Norm Smith Medallist
Apr 3, 2017
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Great write up!

Out: Robbo, McCluggage, Cameron (it looked like his shoulder was injured/niggled at one moment? Prob was just minor and will be right though), Skinner
In: McStay, Rich, Berry, Mathieson

That makes 4 players with at least 8 days break, and 3 others only playing 2 matches in a long time. 7 players to bring a lot of energy and grunt, and other than a few, we didn't look completely dead on our feet so I'm not too worried about that.

Ballenden to keep Big O company with the rucking, and I think he will continue to improve. Payne hopefully would have blown out some nervy cobwebs, and will utilise his body a bit more.

I'm confident in a win, thinking McCarthy and McStay will each get 3 goals. 34pt win.
 

Thedeftouch

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Sorry to the young pups but we need to win games and we probably dont want to overload them anyway

IN- Rich, McStay, Birchall, Lester
OUT- Rayner (inj), Ballenden, Payne, Skinner
 
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