- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
As a Roarer, a columnist for The Roar, our job every week is to come up with a roaring article.
Well, the Brisbane Lions are yet to produce a roaring performance in 2015 despite pre-season predictions that they could be one of the big improvers.
Two of the competition’s better and more influential midfielders in Dayne Beams and Allen Christensen wanted to move to Queensland for personal reasons and as you would expect both Queensland sides the Lions and Gold Coast Suns wanted them.
However, in a good sign for this developing Lions team, it was the Brisbane side that managed to snare their services. It was especially sweet because the Lions lost five high draft picks due to homesick issues at the end of 2013, including Billy Longer, Sam Docherty and Jared Polec.
They also picked up Carlton hard nut Mitch Robinson, who needed a change of scenery. That meant the Lions had plenty of depth in their midfield with Daniel Rich returning from injury, the exciting Irishman Pearce Hanley and the new skipper Tom Rockliff.
The midfield also contained emerging youngsters such as Rising Star winner, Lewis Taylor, Dayne Zorko, Sam Mayes and James Aish, who by the end of last year had all established themselves in the best 22.
It looked like a midfield in the upper echelon of the competition, but there’s a major problem with the great Jonathan Brown having retired as Brisbane don’t have a ready made replacement yet.
Michael Close was developing and looked promising, but is now out for the season with a knee injury, while Jonathan Freeman hasn’t made the progress he started to at the end of 2014.
Daniel McStay looks the goods. However, he will take time to grow into his body and their tall defenders in Daniel Merrett and Matt Maguire are aging.
Don’t get me wrong, the fact that Christensen and Beams were available and chose the Lions as their new destination is great for them, but they need a tall forward and that has been evident in their awful start to the season so far.
Their poor form hasn’t been helped by the loss of form as well of their number one, but injury prone ruckman, Matthew Leuenberger.
The way they are performing, you just don’t know where or how they are going to open their account and start winning games. After their golden era when they won the three flags in a row between 2001 and 2003, Brisbane has made the finals just once since 2004, and that was in 2009.
Ten years is a long time, but it seems much longer than that now in regard to their on-field performances and you can’t see where the next golden era will come from.
To add insult to injury, their top ten draft pick from 2013, James Aish from South Australia, is out of favour and out of the team at the moment as well as out of contract at the end of this season.
He is from a famous South Australian footballing family and his uncle Michael aborted many attempts from Victorian clubs to get him across the border in the 1980s, when he was probably the SANFL’S best player.
The Lions look like they are on a collision course of losing yet another highly credentialed youngster to the go-home factor. They are at a very low ebb currently and times are tough for their coach, Justin Leppitsch.
There’s the old saying ‘the only way is up’, and they would be hoping it starts this week against another straggler, Carlton, on Mother’s Day.
Expect the heat to really rise on the losing coach, if hasn’t already reached boiling point!
Who’s in your ultimate team? Pick the best team and compete with other fans for daily prizes on Draftstars. For the best odds on the game try out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Think. Is this a bet you really want to place? Set a deposit limit.