On the field, off the field. Things aren’t looking great for the Brisbane Lions or the Gold Coast Suns right now.
The issue was made clear throughout various forms of media during the lead-up to last week’s Q-Clash, in which the Suns got their first win of the season while keeping the Lions winless.
The week since has rammed it home further. The headlines were blunt – Suns players disobey no-alcohol edict, Lions coach in unpleasant player confrontation.
And there’s no way around describing the on-field situation at both clubs as anything more than unattractive.
Take a look at these ladders.
Brisbane are a bottom three side across all areas of the park. They have no territorial claim to plant their flag on.
When the midfield can’t hold back the opposition, the defensive 50 aren’t coping with the high inflow. When they do get the ball forward, the forward 50 struggle to capitalise.
All this in an environment where the other team typically wins the inside 50 count convincingly.
It’s a recipe for disaster and it’s showing up in the results. Since losing to Collingwood by two kicks in Round 1, their best performance has been a 53-point loss.
Quarter-by-quarter, it’s even worse. They haven’t won a quarter since Round 1 and overall their best quarter is the first term, in which across five games they’ve been outscored 130-76.
Gold Coast, if measured against where they were expected to be at this point in their existence, could have an equally-damning picture painted of them.
Only one of the five teams they’ve played to date were finalists last year. The other four – no joke – were last year’s bottom four. Just the one win from that dream start is a big, big issue. The matches will only get tougher from here.
But that’s the on-field situation for season 2015. Beyond season 2015 may not be so dire.
Yes, Queensland footy isn’t looking too flash at the moment. Yes, it deserves to be under scrutiny. But should it be panic stations? Perhaps not.
As far as Brisbane goes, it’s always easy to get excited about a list’s potential when there are names like Tom Rockliff, Dayne Zorko and Daniel Rich. Throw in an off-season where Dayne Beams, Mitch Robinson and Allen Christensen were added and it would have been fair to assume the midfield would be more than handy, if nothing else.
That hasn’t translated into results, which is frustrating for fans, but you should never underestimate the power of a nice foundation.
I remember the days of looking at Port Adelaide’s list in the pre-season and seeing names like Boak and Gray and a number of other players with promise, which prompted thoughts that it was only a matter of time before they clicked.
Needless to say, by the time they did click, I’d already given up on pumping up Port during the pre-season. I’d been let down too many times before to get too excited.
But boy, when Port clicked they really clicked. All it took was a couple of trigger events – a new direction off the field and a new coach to steer the on-field efforts – and they were away.
Now, perhaps the Lions are missing some of the ingredients Port had. Perhaps the Lions have other advantages. Who knows.
The thing to remember is that with the right triggers, things can change very quickly. The challenge for the club is identifying what those triggers are.
At the Suns, they too are a club that generate good vibes on paper. They have a list built on the back of high draft picks and special rules around acquiring players from other clubs.
For years, sensationalised back pages told us they were destined for success. And everything up to about nine months ago seemed to follow the script. The club was on the right trajectory.
Since then, a fair bit has changed. But I’m not convinced you can deviate so drastically in that space of time that years of work – and high draft picks – can be undone. Like the Lions, there is a nice foundation there for those willing to look beyond current results.
Like the Lions, it’s fair to say the Suns are also a club in need of some triggers.
In a perfect world, Justin Leppitsch standing up to a player acting without respect would constitute a trigger. In that same world Suns leaders insisting that the players who acted up would miss actual games – rather than copping a fine – would consitute a trigger.
Perhaps that’s how we will perceive those events when looking back at some point in the future.
The truth is that regardless of whether the past week has an impact, a few more things will need to fall into place. But as the Port Adelaide example shows, those things can fall into place pretty quickly – especially when there’s a mix of star power and young talent at your foundation.
And Queensland right now has a number of emerging stars in the right age bracket playing across the state’s two clubs.
Jumping to dire conclusions with that foundation probably isn’t the best approach.
SportsFanGC
Roar Guru
Michael I think that many Clubs in struggle town love looking at Port Adelaide and thinking “they turned around a dire straits situation and look at them now – respected and playing to full houses at the brilliant Adelaide Oval”. The way I see it for the two Queensland Clubs where my interest in the AFL lies is as follows: Brisbane They have a reasonably deep batting midfield and a pretty good ruck combination but they have structural issues in both defence and attack. In attack the next gen of key forwards Close, Freeman and McStay are only kids and it will be at least another few seasons before they are regular consistent contributors for the Lions. Additionally, there is literally no intimidation factor with these guys at the moment, which all good sides possess. Add to this that Close will miss this season with an ACL and Freeman will most of the season with a recent ankle injury after almost coming right from a back problem. Hammelmann and Andrews are in the same boat – young, raw, skinny kids that need massive gym time and 3-4 pre-seasons to get their bodies right for an AFL career. I won’t include Staker and McGuane in this discussion as they are cooked and no football club in their right mind would re-sign either of these guys considering the injuries they have had over the past 3-5 years. While Browny was in the team this was never adequately addressed and now we have what we have – a group of kids that need time to develop. This is not ideal in a frontier state. Defensively the Lions have a heavy reliance on Clarke and Gardiner at the moment while Merrett is on the sidelines. Clarke does what is expected of a defender but his foot skills are poor. Gardiner is a kid in his second season and looks pretty solid in his role but he also needs big gym time to take on some of the bigger monsters of the competition. The Lions have started to address the off-field situation with the CEO, Board and signing/re-signing of sponsorship arrangements but they are coming from a long, long way back after a decade (maybe longer) of mismanagement. A massive issue that needs immediate attention outside of their financials is an Elite Training and Administration Facility – they are the only club in the AFL that doesn’t have one or currently has one being built. This can be a factor when trying to attract talent to your Club. Gold Coast Off-field culture seems to have finally reared its head in the public domain after 4 years of basically hearing nothing about it all – bar a couple of stories here and there. Eade and Malceski probably signed and arrived at the Club expecting something completely different than what was put before them when they walked in the front door. Favorable treatment for some players (Ablett and his constant travel back to Melbourne, not fronting press conferences etc), slap on the wrist stuff for others that don’t adhere to team protocols (if they even had protocols in place) and an appalling deficiency in skill level and lack of intensity at training has come home to roost. I seriously wonder if people are still wondering whether Guy McKenna was the right Coach to take this group forward as these traits developed under his watch as Senior Coach? The first steps to address the above have now been taken. These kids need to know that they are now 5 years into their AFL careers and don’t have all the time in the world to make something of themselves or this Club. The average player in the AFL does not even last 5 years! The injury toll at the Club is severely hindering the team at the moment and cannot be overlooked. Seeing all those guys in the stands on the weekend was disheartening and just makes you realise that they are better than the garbage that they are dishing up at the moment. For example a player like Aaron Hall is only a NEAFL standard player who provides very little to the senior team (can’t tackle, doesn’t impact the scoreboard and does not like the contest and getting hit) yet he is playing AFL footy due to nothing other than lack of available options. Andrew Raines is another – looked off the pace on the weekend and is a reminder that the NEAFL is where he will play out his footy career. There is a way out of the mess these Clubs find themselves in – it will take a lot of hard work and support from the AFL. Someone has to finish last in all sporting competitions and this year unfortunately for us fans in the Sunshine State it is the Queensland AFL Clubs.
Paul D
Roar Guru
Short of a magic wand, I’d love to know how you think the Lions are just going to “address” the problem of their gargantuan debt.
Daws
Guest
...where did he go?
Baz
Guest
The two teams will be fine as long as half of Victoria continues to live in the South East.
Michael DiFabrizio
Expert
TomC, I don't think playing down the problems automatically lends itself to supporting the stripping of academy concessions. That wasn't an issue I touched in the article, because the article was about the general pessimism/optimism towards the clubs and their prospects. Like you say, the issues are on and off field. I'd like to see where the clubs end up after those issues have been addressed.
TomC
Roar Guru
Michael, if you believe that, you haven't been paying attention. In both cases, poor on field form is going hand in hand with off field turmoil. Both teams are battling structural and cultural issues that are only starting to be addressed, at best. Gold coast have too many good players not to have some kind of resurgence later in the year, but they'll still finish around the bottom four. Brisbane are likely to be wooden Spooners. It is hard to run a successful footy club in a non-AFL state. The occasional successes have mostly come with generous concessions and have twisted the discussion, but there needs to be serious questions about the support frontier clubs need to be sustainable in the long term. Playing down the problems means we get travesties like the stripping of meagre academy concessions.
Tom from Perth
Guest
#bringbackdonfreo
Andy_Roo
Roar Guru
I agree that whilst there is no crisis at either club there is a need for urgent action to arrest the slide. At Gold Coast that urgent action is the action that has been taken, i.e. drawing a line in the sand on the minimum standards expected. And as most teams now follow the Swans lead, these standards and associated punishments are enforced by the players with the backing of the club. It remains to be seen how the individual players respond and indeed how the team as a whole responds. I suspect that by mid season things will be looking much brighter. At Brisbane it seems that the coach/player relationships are the issue. The playing talent, whilst being good at their best, is lacking quality forwards and defenders. This makes the coach's job in developing a game plan more difficult and makes the players jobs more difficult when they don't have the collective ability to enact that game plan. Development takes time and hopefully the natural development and improvement will occur, however I suspect that improvement will take all season.