Despite showing few signs of life in the season’s opening months, Brisbane is well and truly alive — and it appears destined to retain an in-demand free agent.
Their comprehensive win over the Western Bulldogs in Round 13 means the Lions are undefeated in four of their past five matches, holding a 5-1-6 record after 12 games.
Granted, it’s a far cry from the attractive 8-4 position Chris Fagan’s side sat this time last year, but, as integral veteran Dayne Zorko notes, they have been trending in the right direction.
Brisbane was led by Eric Hipwood’s thunderous six-goal effort and dual Brownlow medallist Lachie Neale’s 38 disposals and 10 clearances.
But, more than individual standouts, it was Brisbane’s ability to exert clearance dominance against a Bulldogs outfit that led the league in points from stoppage differential (+24.2) over the past five matches — and regained vaunted ball-winner Tom Liberatore on the night.
“Our numbers (had) actually been pretty good up (to) the break, we just hadn’t kicked accurately enough to keep ourselves in games (for) long enough,” Zorko told foxfooty.com.au post-game on Friday night.
“We knew our formula was really good, our process was really strong, (but) we just weren’t executing that on the scoreboard, (but) tonight we got back to playing our front-half game that we have been doing really well, and our forwards stepped up and kicked a (winning) score for us.”
The Lions weren’t under any illusions. While they might have spoken internally about their promising ‘process’, it simply hadn’t been translating to premiership points.
However, fuelled by the unwavering belief of their senior coach, they issued an ominous statement against the Bulldogs, who were widely tipped to continue their winning ways under the Marvel Stadium roof.
“I know our record wasn’t ideal heading into the bye, but ‘Fages’ (Fagan) was really adamant that our statistics are trending in the right direction — actually, in fact, they’re better than what they were last year (when) we were 8-3,” Zorko said.
Given that our process is in good order, we just had to keep doing what we’re doing, and tonight our forwards (stood up). Eric Hipwood was unbelievable, Lachie Neale was unbelievable, and we’ll take a lot of belief from that, given that our game’s in really good shape.”
As Fagan relayed to his playing group, Brisbane’s profile stacks up. It has been the best AFL side in points from turnover differential (+27.6) in the past five games, leading the top-of-the-table and next-best Sydney Swans (+22.2), who have sat atop the crucial category for the majority of the season.
In the past six weeks, the Lions rank first in the league in points against from turnover, third in inside-50s against, fifth in points against, and fifth in forward-half intercepts.
