Building blocks for the Brisbane Lions

As we continue to work through how your club has fared this year, and where every club is at in terms of development and premiership success, today we reach the young Brisbane Lions.

Currently: 15th. Three wins, 11 losses, 79.3 percent.

At the end of the 2009 season the Lions were flying high, coming off a semi-final finish to the year.

Brisbane was so full of confidence that their coach Michael Voss became the most active man in trade week, picking up five mature players including Carlton full-forward Brendan Fevola.

It was an experiment that went horribly wrong.

Fast forward to 2011 and the coach has admitted his mistake quite clearly.

Voss has injected youth into the Lions line-up, demonstrating that Brisbane has begun a rebuild stage of their cycle.

As their ladder position suggests Brisbane have found wins hard to come by so far this season, with only three successes over North Melbourne, Adelaide and Port Adelaide over the weekend.

The Lions went down in their first game at home to the Dockers by two points, and more importantly lost their skipper Jonathan Brown with a facial fracture and Brent Staker with a severe knee injury.

They then travelled to Melbourne to take on the Bulldogs who handed them a 78-point loss.

The next five weeks were positive without a win for the Lions, narrow losses to Melbourne, St Kilda and Gold Coast pleasing coach Michael Voss in terms of the effort from his younger brigade.

Rounds nine and ten saw Brown’s return and the Lions return to the winners list, with a tight victory against North Melbourne and a hard-fought win over the Crows.

After big losses to the Swans and Carlton in consecutive weeks, the Lions dropped leads late in games against Richmond and Fremantle. The Lions go home against Port Adelaide with an 11 point victory.

With more winnable games coming up in the next month, the Lions have the opportunity to boost their position.

With Mitch Clark proving his worth up forward for the Lions and their ruck combination a fierce duo in training, the Lions are showing many positive signs.

Prediction: 14th. Six wins, 16 losses. 81.1 percent.

Going forward
The Brisbane Lions are heading on the right track and should be playing finals within the next two years. Michael Voss will need to show the Brisbane faithful success in order to keep his position beyond the end of 2012.

Redden, Rockliff, and Rich have shown that the future of the Lions midfield is safe. Brisbane will need to top up in the coming years as Brown ages.

They will be in need of a second key forward, and also a centre-half-back with marking ability who can give full-back Daniel Merrett a chop out.

Over the next three years expect, Brown, Black and Power to call the end on stellar careers, and not far behind them, Lions recruits Maguire, Raines, and Buchannan.

Brisbane must continue to focus as they have done on younger players, in order to develop a list that will can sustain success for years to come.

They have the talent in their core group of young players, but need to nurture that in to ensure they become quality AFL footballers.

Premiership window: 2015-2020