Review Round 12, 2025 - Brisbane Lions vs. Essendon

[troppo]

On another matter, McCluggage played his career best game of football last night, so he will rightfully garner most of the limelight, but people should spare a bit for Jarrod Berry. His equal team high 8 intercept possessions were massive and his work rate on and off the ball was sensational. He is evolving before our eyes and fast becoming one of our most important players.

One of our posters wrote recently that is was no coincidence that we were unable to win the two games that Bez didn’t complete. He and Dunkley do most of the hard work in this team. His courage is undoubted and seems somehow to contribute at both ends of the ground. He receives some incredibly hard knocks standing in front of packs, gets up, waives the medical staff away and continues to run. One of my favourites

 

[Coastal Lion]

One of our posters wrote recently that is was no coincidence that we were unable to win the two games that Bez didn’t complete. He and Dunkley do most of the hard work in this team. His courage is undoubted and seems somehow to contribute at both ends of the ground. He receives some incredibly hard knocks standing in front of packs, gets up, waives the medical staff away and continues to run. One of my favourites

100%
Berry took a couple of knocks last night again dragged himself off the turf and went again and again.
As for Dunks I'm getting an imaginary tattoo next to the 1 I have of starc on my forearm.
Quote "Denfence wins championships" Bill Murray ,Rushmore

 

[luthor]

The 1.6% of you that didn't give Hugh a vote know as much about footy as Trump knows about Economics.

 

[Diverse]

Is our midfield struggling with Fort? I still don’t rate him and will probably get called out again but jeez got done by a retiree.

Also any way we can squeeze in Dev? Maybe drop Rayner and Lashcroft as a sub?

 

[uzabuz]

The 1.6% of you that didn't give Hugh a vote know as much about footy as Trump knows about Economics.

How good was this one handed pickup by Hugh and the Noz finish

 

[braddsey]

So anyone who is still disappointed about last night's game, feel free to head over to the Essendon board where (based on talkback callers today) they're still celebrating an honourable loss. I remember when we used to celebrate honourable losses...

They will probably appreciate your finals experience over there, you can share stories of what actual glory feels like.

 

[dlanod]

So anyone who is still disappointed about last night's game, feel free to head over to the Essendon board where (based on talkback callers today) they're still celebrating an honourable loss. I remember when we used to celebrate honourable losses...

They will probably appreciate your finals experience over there, you can share stories of what actual glory feels like.

Absolutely. And the mods could kindly ensure that you can relax for a day or week before our next game!

 

[StevoJenkins]

Is our midfield struggling with Fort? I still don’t rate him and will probably get called out again but jeez got done by a retiree.

Also any way we can squeeze in Dev? Maybe drop Rayner and Lashcroft as a sub?

Goldy is still a very good ruckman.
No shade on Fort for losing to him, Goldy at his peak is better than Gawn. Was at his peak last night.

 

[Saucery]

3 Games in 11 days including a trip to Melbourne and a mighty effort against the Hawks. We were entitled to be a bit weary and it showed. A few lazy defensive efforts and some careless kicking but I'll take the 4 thanks.

Yes, even Fagan said they did basically nothing this week, it's understandable why intent and execution were off. And Essendon didn't just give us the game; we had to earn it.

 

[twhowler]

Yes, even Fagan said they did basically nothing this week, it's understandable why intent and execution were off. And Essendon didn't just give us the game; we had to earn it.

And yet. no changes!!!! Why not freshen up the team with any of Dev / Reville / McLachlan / Tunstill who have all looked comfortable at afl level

not a rant at you. just increasingly baffled reading all the fagan quotes about how we were so tired, yet he makes zero changes!

 

[Saucery]

Give the hysteria a spell

OK that's enough shouting down, if there's one area on the board we have poor depth in its catastrophists.

This will hurt us come finals mark my words, I may have come out of retirement if things don't improve soon.

 

[Saucery]

And yet. no changes!!!! Why not freshen up the team with any of Dev / Reville / McLachlan / Tunstill who have all looked comfortable at afl level

not a rant at you. just increasingly baffled reading all the fagan quotes about how we were so tired, yet he makes zero changes!

OK, here's one along now

 

[KissKiss]

And yet. no changes!!!! Why not freshen up the team with any of Dev / Reville / McLachlan / Tunstill who have all looked comfortable at afl level

not a rant at you. just increasingly baffled reading all the fagan quotes about how we were so tired, yet he makes zero changes!

Yeah it kills me too. I get players are tired so why dont we rest some? We have guys who arent developing enough to step in, so maybe we should try them out in certain games?

We know that players dont like to miss and risk their spots, but pretty much every top sport has to manage this. We are seeing good examples in other teams rotating players. We can see best practice from sports science and other spots on managing fatigue levels. But our coaching ranks dont seem to want to try or test it

 

[braddsey]

Goldy is still a very good ruckman.
No shade on Fort for losing to him, Goldy at his peak is better than Gawn. Was at his peak last night.

No doubt Goldy has been a great ruckman. To say he is better than Gawn is probably stretching reality though. Gawn is arguably the best ruckman of the modern era.

 

[LongLion]

No doubt Goldy has been a great ruckman. To say he is better than Gawn is probably stretching reality though. Gawn is arguably the best ruckman of the modern era.

certainly in the top 3

 

[bungalow_bill]

Yes and no on this. He was such a presence up there and yet when we've played our best footy this year (few and far between, I know) I honestly don't think we do miss him.

Our boys are poetry in motion when they all work together and end up scoring. That wave of maroon, blue and gold I loved in our 3peat years and then again last year.

For all of the frustration of play this year, we are still winning without Joe....we have enough awesome players that says we are not a one man team as so many are.

I'm guessing the same thing was said about the Hawks when Franklin went to Sydney- but they went on to win 2 more flags.

 

[3KZ is Football]

Sadly I don't think there is a good matchup here at all. Probably Payne to THilthorpe, Froggy to Fogarty and Harris on Walker.

Froggy will go to Fogarty, pretend he’s playing on Cameron, and completely annihilate him.

 

[Coastal Lion]

The best thing about last night was watching Bez and Suitcase play well out of the middle whilst the number 1 pick from the same draft had his usual vanilla game off hbf pick 2 traded for 3 and 16 i imagine The Bombers are still kicking themselves they didn't deal with GWS like we did.

 

[Big Sauce 21]

Froggy will go to Fogarty, pretend he’s playing on Cameron, and completely annihilate him.

If there is a player Frog struggles with it's Fogarty.

 

[3KZ is Football]

If there is a player Frog struggles with it's Fogarty.

That’s been remedied by my plan.

 

[Dalions]

That’s been remedied by my plan.

The plan to do some more typing?

 

[Elixuh]

If there is a player Frog struggles with it's Fogarty.

I think you missed the bit where 3kz said that froggy will psychologically believe he is playing on Cameron. It’s a fool proof strategy.

 

[Mooch]

Before the game I was saying hey remember when we played these last year and we were expected to win comfortably but somehow we made a real meal of it and only won by 12 points or something? Deja Vu.

We looked great in the first quarter. I was commenting on how our forwards were all being so dynamic, pulling defenders all over, and creating space. And then after that ..... We were still the better side in Q2 though the scoreboard reflected we didn't take our chances and they did. Then after that it was just excruciating to watch. Missing relatively simple shots was one thing but just being overrun and outmanned constantly was pretty disturbing. Every time the ball hit the deck anywhere on the pitch, it felt like they would pick it up and end up within sight of our goals.

I was relieved we got a couple of late ones to get the win. Reality is we're not going to win every game and we're not going to play like champions in every game. Somehow we got the points here when we could easily have thrown them away. We're top of the ladder (at least for a few hours) and we'll finish the round no lower than 2nd. Half way through the season, I'll take that. Every single year.

 

[martinson]

Before the game I was saying hey remember when we played these last year and we were expected to win comfortably but somehow we made a real meal of it and only won by 12 points or something? Deja Vu.

We looked great in the first quarter. I was commenting on how our forwards were all being so dynamic, pulling defenders all over, and creating space. And then after that ..... We were still the better side in Q2 though the scoreboard reflected we didn't take our chances and they did. Then after that it was just excruciating to watch. Missing relatively simple shots was one thing but just being overrun and outmanned constantly was pretty disturbing. Every time the ball hit the deck anywhere on the pitch, it felt like they would pick it up and end up within sight of our goals.

I was relieved we got a couple of late ones to get the win. Reality is we're not going to win every game and we're not going to play like champions in every game. Somehow we got the points here when we could easily have thrown them away. We're top of the ladder (at least for a few hours) and we'll finish the round no lower than 2nd. Half way through the season, I'll take that. Every single year.

This match was doing my head in for some reason. It was inconceivable to me that we could lose.

All things considered it's been a really boring season for us so far with no real reason to get over excited or depressed.

The next 3 weeks are likely the most interesting in the Fagan era.

Part of me hopes that we're as good as we looked in the GF and the actuarial part of my brain says the gods aligned for us in 2024.

So really looking forward to this next patch of games culminating in a visit the that Geelong shithole.

 

[Section 5]

At the game i thought Essendon played well and we were just off a bit.
Some other posters thought we were way off but i don't agree.
Most of the game appeared to be on the opposite side of the ground so needed to watch a reply.

A few takeaways

Essendon kicked the first 3 goals in the 2nd and that undone our good work in the 1st quarter.
Essendon kicked the first 3 goals in the third. The first 2 in the opening 3 minutes.
Essendon kicked the first 2 goals in the 4th, Those first 2 in the opening 2.5 minutes.
Opposition getting very good quarter starts is just as bad as them kicking red time goals. Credit to Essendon though.

I thought it was a hard-fought win against a team that played it out till the end after a slow start.
Conditions were a little slippery the first quarter and that continued till 3/4 time.
A slight increase in showers the last quarter made it more so and made it hard going for both teams.

Overall, i thought it was a good quality game of footy considering the slippery conditions.
A much better hit-out than a lot of people would have expected.

I thought we got a little goal fever in the second quarter pinging off 6 behinds most from around the 50-meter mark.
Lowering our eyes going I50 has been an issue in a few games this year.
In hindsight that's an easy comment. If 3 of the six were goals (some went close) that would have been 4 for the quarter and the game would have been nearly out of Essendon's reach.

Two minutes into the last quarter Essendon kicked 2 quick goals to draw level with the Lions.
From that point on our players did not want another North result and picked up the pressure.
From that point on we scored 20 to their 2 so a good effort especially when players would have been fatigued with the short 5-day turnover.

Teams are defiantly upping the pressure when they meet the premiers.
The Crows away next but we have an 8-day break to recover.