Pre-season results won’t mean much to the Brisbane Lions this year, according to vice-captain Tom Rockliff. And just as well.
Hawthorn thumped an inexperienced Lions by 131 points in their pre-season opener last week.
Rockliff reckoned they had not taken much notice of the scoreboard, only the invaluable experience soaked up by the Lions cubs.
And their approach won’t be changing in Sunday’s second pre-season clash with the Gold Coast in Townsville despite at least 10 senior Lions players returning.
Rockliff said the harsh lessons learned from 2013 had taught the Lions they should never get carried away by pre-season results.
The Lions shocked Carlton to win the pre-season final – only to be thumped by 68 points by lowly Western Bulldogs in the AFL first round.
They finished the 2013 season 12th with a 10-12 record.
“I don’t think the outcome is all that important during the pre-season,” Rockliff said.
“You want to have a few wins. (But) we won the pre-season competition last year and came out in round one and got belted.”
Lions captain Jed Adcock is set to return against the Suns along with the likes of Rockliff, Daniel Rich, Jack Redden and Daniel Merrett.
Former skipper Jonathan Brown (foot), Ash McGrath (calf) and Brent Staker (calf) are not expected to be considered.
However, the Lions will line up against a depleted Suns outfit after coach Guy McKenna claimed several stars, including captain Gary Ablett, Jaeger O’Meara and David Swallow would be rested after featuring in Monday night’s win over Essendon.
“It’s similar to what we did last week,” Rockliff said.
“It’s still a fair way until round one.
“They don’t want to travel too much and being an interstate team you end up travelling 10, 11 times a year, and you want to go into round one fresh so we thought they might rest a few.”
TomC
Roar Guru
Alarm bells would start to ring if the Lions don't comfortably dispose of the Suns in Townsville on Sunday.
dockersfan
Guest
What we miss is the training loads each team has the week before they play. Different teams will be loading up their players, getting them to do 30-35 km's of running whereas other sides looking to work on game plans (i.e. new coaches etc.) will have lowered the amount of the work their players are doing so they can execute and follow their game plans. It's not lack of effort that makes these professionals look sluggish, it's whether they've been getting smashed on the training track on the days leading into the practice matches.
Hayley Wildes
Roar Pro
Results don't matter, but you want to see improvement, effort and fight from your players. Brisbane supporters need to take in to account they have learned a completely new game plan over the summer and patience is key.
Steve J
Roar Guru
Yep - and the Hawks lost all their NAB Challenge matches last year. Pre-season is all about giving kids a run, trying different set ups, players in new positions and generally getting players to have a match condition run.
josh
Roar Rookie
Well the Lions won last year's pre-season, look how that ended.