Season 2018 - Brisbane Lions

Football Discussion Non Essendon Stuff
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Brisbane

Coach – Chris Fagan

2017 –
Points For – 13th
Points Against – 18th

Top 5 Best and Fairest

  1. Dayne Zorko
  2. Dayne Beams
  3. Tom Rockliff
  4. Stefan Martin
  5. Sam Mayes

2017 Rising Star Noms

Eric Hipwood (Rnd 5)
Hugh McLuggage (Rnd 14)
Alex Witherden (Rnd 17)

Ins – Luke Hodge, Charlie Cameron, Cameron Rayner, Zac Bailey, Brandon Starcevich, Toby Wooller, Connor Ballenden, Jack Payne,

Outs – Tom Rockliff, Ryan Harwood, Jarrad Jansen, Jonathan Freeman, Josh Clayton, Blake Grewar, Michael Close, Reuben William, Matthew Hammelmann, Josh Schache

My Prediction

Here we are again looking at the bottom of the pool and predicting what they will throw up again this year. There is finally a sense of some sort of optimism at Brisbane this year. Despite losing Rockliff, their team looks stronger than the year before. It has been a while since you could say that.

The backline copped a hiding last year and is probably an area that they havent imrpoved. They will be relying on the improvement from a young list to carry them a bit further. They conceded over 200 points more than the next worst defense. Hodge has been brought in with the task of pulling the backline together. He is certainly capable of (courageously) coaching from on the field but this is a massive task. They look really light on with KPD talent and not too much in the wings. Andrews and McStay though are a good place to start and they have some decent small talent back there with Mayes and Witherden looks fantastic.

I don’t mind the midfield. Beams, Zorko and Robinson give some hardness, they probably lack polish but they will be hoping Cameron will give them some outside run. I am far from sold on Cameron who I think may struggle away from the Crows but at least the thought is there. Zorko was brilliant last year although he too may dip without Rockliff. Zorko looked very tagable last year and his numbers plummeted when he was paid close attention. McLuggage should be better for the run and Mathieson is a bull, if he ever learns to kick then watch out.

The forward line has room for improvement but they have some talent. Hipwood is a massive talent. The question mark I guess is that four of their top five goal kickers are midfielders. They need some others to stand up. Walker is progressing nicely and Rayner will give them a boost but again like their backline, they lack KP depth. If they lost Hipwood to injury then they are sunk.

The ruck department is good. Martin is still a quality ruckman and Archie Smith showed enough last year to suggest he will be handy when the time comes.

The coach I cant get a read on yet. If he can continue to stop players leaving then he will be a success. He looks to be focused a lot more on building a team culture than winning games which I guess will come. The race for the spoon genuinely looks like a race in two this year with the Roos and Brisbane the main contenders. For what it is worth, I think the Lions will finish 17th.

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Will be better than Carlton. 16th.

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@SMJ

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Lions; the more things change, the more they remain the same. Going nowhere slowly. Plenty more pain, before there will be any gain.

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Will win about 4 games.
17/16th

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Reckon they’ll win 6 matches, 7 if they play us twice

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I reckon they’ll jump up to around 13th with about 8 wins.
They improved a fair bit in 2017 (won 2 more games and had a much better percentage).
I think Hodge will provide more value to them than they’ve lost with Rockliff’s departure. They’ve got plenty of promising youngsters, so some of them are bound to start coming on.

Teams like North, Gold Coast, Carlton, West Coast and possibly Freo and Collingwood will be behind them.

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Their midfielders and individuals are as good as ours. But they can never get them all on the park at once for longer than a game or two.

There is no key forward or key crumbing goal scorer. Cameron will be targeted and I don’t think he’ll handle it as well next season. I liked Hipwood and think he’ll come good, but am not sure if you can build a forward line around him. He’d be a perfect Robin to Batman.

They badly need a backup ruck. If Martin is injured then they’ll have to rely on players who have played less than 10 senior games. I don’t even think they have a ruckman that they are developing on their list. Smith and McInernay aren’t exactly smashing NEAFL and I don’t recall them being highly sought after in their draft year.

Their lock down defenders are still learning Gardner and Andrews will both be fine. I think they are roughly at the same stage as Pears and Hooker were when they first played well against Buddy and Roughed at Etihad (for memory Knights was the coach). If they don’t get injured, they’ll be very good defenders.

They need two more drafts to weed out their list and hope that they can hang on to the talent just to be competing with the other teams around mid table.

Still bottom 4 for talent by me. Don’t know what their draw is like, but they should be bottom 4. Can only see them beating Gold Coast, North and Freo (in Qld) and maybe surprise Carlton.

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18th

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“I like how they take the game on”
“They are still learning”
“The team is building”
“Despite the 80 point loss I have seen some real bright signs about the team”
“The coach needs more time”

Things commentators will say during Brisbane games this season as they finish bottom 2.

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“They’re actually better than people give them credit for.” - Blitz in a few short months.

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Exactly. This is a typical scenario of out of sight, out of mind, plus people assuming just because they finished last they’ll continue to be crap.

They won’t be bottom 4.

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Not better than Norf?
Surely Norf must be odds on for the spoon…

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carlton. the team that beat us this year?

and we scraaaped past them the second time?

nah.

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I reckon Gold Coast are a certainty for the spoon next year

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Agreed

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Clug just signed for 3 more tears

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Lol. 3 more years. Typo somehiw seems appropriate though

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Are Fitzroy gonna fold for a second time?

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Kangaroo-With-Funny-Lion-Face.jpg500×501 52.9 KB

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