Roar Guru
The Brisbane Lions will host the Melbourne Demons at the Gabba on Saturday night. Join The Roar for live scores and a blog of the match, starting from 7:25pm AEDT.
It wasn’t the desired start to season 2018 for these two teams, who lost their round one clashes.
Brisbane started positively against St Kilda last Saturday, holding their own and even leading during the third term.
However, a six-goals-to-two last quarter meant the Saints ran away with the win. Despite the loss, there were plenty of positives for the Lions to take away.
It was heartbreak for the Demons in their Round 1 game, as they had chances to steal the win from Geelong in the dying minutes.
Max Gawn’s confident mark wasn’t matched by his shot at goal and the Dees ended up going down by three points.
Last time Brisbane and Melbourne met was round 22 last year. The Demons won by 13 points in a close encounter at the MCG.
The Dees have won the last three matches between these two sides, and will be looking to notch up a fourth and their first win at the Gabba since 2010.
Brisbane will be without Daniel Rich who injured his ankle against the Saints, the suspended Mitch Robinson and Tom Bell, who has been omitted.
Cedric Cox, Rohan Bewick and Rhys Mathieson come into the side and will start on the interchange.
Cox and Bewick impressed in recent NEAFL matches, while Mathieson will return from a minor hamstring complaint that kept him out of round one.
The Demons have also made a couple of changes, bringing in Dom Tyson and Tomas Bugg to start on the bench. Mitch Hannan and Corey Maynard are the omissions.
With a relatively healthy list, Melbourne have decided to bring in two guys who were unlucky to miss round one selection.
The Lions’ Allen Christensen will play his 100th AFL game.
Prediction
Melbourne are aiming for finals this year. Needing twelve or so victories to achieve this, games such as this against Brisbane are must wins.
Max Gawn and Stefan Martin will be an intriguing ruck battle, while it will be interesting to see how the young Brisbane forward line goes against a pretty experienced and handy Melbourne defence.
After falling just short last week against a quality side in Geelong, the Dee’s will hold the advantage with their experience and will be desperate to even their ledger at one win and one loss.
Melbourne by 21 points.
Join The Roar for live scores and a blog of the match, starting from 7:25pm AEDT.