2023 Best 23s: More new guns than they know what to do with, how do the Lions fit everyone in?

Happy New Year, everybody!

The countdown to Round 1, 2023 officially starts now – so throughout January, I’ll be looking at all 18 AFL clubs and doing my best to put together an optimum team for the new year.

I’ll take injuries and suspensions into account, but this won’t be a predicted team for Round 1 – think of it more as a guide to what your team’s best 23 (the 22 starting players plus the new unrestricted substitute) could look like as the year unfolds.

Yesterday, I deep-dove into the Adelaide Crows; today, it’s the Brisbane Lions’ turn.

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When you add to a list that got you to a preliminary final with a best-and-fairest winner, a triple-premiership key forward and the brightest young talent in that year’s draft, it’s fair to say expectations will be pretty high.

Add that to a run of three consecutive top-four appearances before said preliminary final without a single grand final appearance, and surely nothing short of a breakthrough appearance on the last Saturday in September can be an acceptable outcome for the Lions in 2023.

That’s not to say their list is without flaw: you don’t pass up on a player like Josh Dunkley, but the Lions weren’t exactly crying out for high-quality midfielders. Will Ashcroft could easily have a Nick Daicos-esque debut season, but probably isn’t going to be a matchwinner just yet; while Jack Gunston, is, at best, a moderate upgrade on the more versatile but less scoreboard-threatening Dan McStay, who they lost to Collingwood.

The Lions will need to tighten up defensively, retain their almost unmatched scoring power, and find a way to get Ashcroft and fellow father-son Jaspa Fletcher enough senior football exposure to aid their development while still barrelling at full steam towards another deep finals run.

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Defenders

The Lions’ issues defensively (relatively speaking – ninth place for home-and-away points conceded is only bad if you have premiership aspirations) aren’t as much to do with their cattle as they are the whole not quite adding up to the sum of its parts.

Brandon Starcevich might be the best lockdown small defender in the game – he’d have multiple All-Australian jumpers by now if the selectors rated that sort of thing – while Keidean Coleman has had an outstanding start to his career and looms as the long-term replacement for Daniel Rich as rebounder-in-chief. Rich, too, isn’t wearied by age just yet.

As for the talls, Harris Andrews hasn’t been at his best for a couple of years now, but I’d argue a lot of that has to do with a lapse in pressure on the ball carrier coming from further afield. Even an out-of-form Andrews is still a more than handy presence in the back six, at any rate. Then you have Marcus Adams, currently in the midst of a concussion battle but a lock in the best 23 when fully fit; as is Darcy Gardiner, whose ability to play on either talls or smalls is well worth the nightmare game he tends to pull out exactly once ever season.

The Lions have depth, too: Noah Answerth is exceptionally highly rated internally and made a seamless return from a knee injury in 2023, while Darcy Wilmot made such an impression that he became the second player in 40 years to make his debut in a final. And they’re just battling to make it to the 23!

I haven’t even got to captain Dayne Zorko yet, who shifted to half-back for much of last season to transition the Lions’ midfield over to the next generation.

With Coleman and Rich so impressive, it might be too much to ask to have a third primarily offensive-minded player in the backline group. I’m old enough to remember Zorko’s exceptional start to his AFL career as an exciting goalsneak with stints on the ball, and am keen to see him finish up in a similar role. Chris Fagan knows best, I guess.

I expect Jaxon Prior, in the same boat as the other pair, to fight for his spot in the senior team; at just 21 years old, he has time on his side to find a niche, but the Lions aren’t a team that needs to gift youngsters games on potential alone.

All in all, the Lions lack for nothing in their back group: they’ve just never truly gelled as a group, and often get caught short by a lack of support further afield against their most serious premiership rivals – their preliminary final obliteration at the hands of Geelong a perfect example.

If you can tell me what the heck Andrews, Gardiner and co. are meant to do when the ball comes at them like this, I’m all ears.

Midfielders

Like the defence, half the Lions’ midfield basically picks itself. Let’s start with Lachie Neale – Brownlow Medallist, ball magnet and certified superstar of the game, he attended 85 per cent of the Lions’ centre bounces in 2022 – and I’m a bit surprised it’s that low.

As for the rest, it’s now about working out who shifts where and when to accommodate the arrival of Josh Dunkley, who you suspect will instantly become a member of the Lions’ first-choice centre bounce group.

Dunkley is a bit of a unicorn in the AFL, in that he’s a predominantly defensively-minded midfielder when he’s in there, rating elite for tackles and regularly pushing deep into defence to help the Bulldogs’ oft-outmatched back six; but he hits the scoreboard an awful lot when up forward too, kicking 18 goals in 2022.

In a line-up full of uber-talented young guns intent on winning their own ball but limited in their work the other way, the big-bodied former Dog is a perfect fit on paper. The question is whether his new midfield teammates can adapt their games around his arrival to continue performing at a similar output.

Top of that list is Hugh McCluggage, who has slowly but surely been edging more into the on-ball brigade from his old wing role with every passing year.

The Lions have a lot of guys who are exceptional when on the ball but struggle more in other roles – hi, Jarryd Lyons – but McCluggage was good enough to be borderline All-Australian on the wing. At worst, he could operate similarly to how Josh Kelly operated for GWS late last year: start on a wing but push into the on-ball brigade once the ball is bounced rather than maintaining his space a la the Blake Acres/Ed Langdon-type genuine wingmen.

Put Zac Bailey in the same boat – it remains to be seen whether Dunkley’s arrival will consign Bailey to becoming a super-dangerous permanent small forward rather than a Tom Papley-like forward-cum-mid, but I love him too much around the play to want him to go down that first path.

He’s as close to prime Robbie Gray as there is in the AFL at the moment, and Robbie spent the first seven years of his career in the forward pocket before being unleashed into the midfield.

Bailey gets maybe one or two centre bounces a game these days, and Dunkley’s arrival will probably hurt him more than a bona fide bull like Cam Rayner when it comes to opportunities. If he can develop the tank to become a genuine attacking winger in the Isaac Smith mould, it would keep him around the ball, add another string to the Lions’ bow offensively, and make me very happy. A win-win-win.

Jarrod Berry showed immense promise late in the year as a ball-winning tagger, and basically won the Lions their semi final against Melbourne with his second half job on Clayton Oliver. The Lions have tried him a lot as a winger over the last few years and it hasn’t really worked – it’s no coincidence his breakout year came in 2020, when he basically alternated centre bounces with Zorko. He’s got enough attacking weapons to form a potent mix with Dunkley and Neale in there as a starting trio.

Rayner got plenty of opportunities at the centre bounces last year, which I love – but I still feel he’ll be more of a burst player than a Dustin Martin reincarnation. I’m happy to be proven wrong, though, and with Neale turning 30 in May, he might be the heir apparent when the champion finally starts to slow down.

(Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)

Forwards

There’s talent everywhere you look in the Lions’ forward line: talls, smalls, mid-sizers, they’ve got it all. And ranking sixth for average inside 50s in 2022, they get it to them enough to consistently finish among the AFL’s highest-scoring teams year on year.

For a side with some of the best small forwards going around – Charlie Cameron chief among them – the Lions’ pressure game isn’t strong, averaging just 10.4 tackles inside 50 per game last year. That ranks 10th in the competition, and is just about the only offensive-related trait in which the Lions weren’t among the cream of the crop.

Unless they want to let good sides like Geelong waltz out of their forward line time and time again, like they did in the preliminary final, that’s an area that needs fixing.

I’d love to see Zorko reinvent himself in a role like that – I accept it’s likely he’ll continue to be a steady head behind the ball, but a zippy tackling machine that can win his own ball and hit the scoreboard is basically where Zorko started out all those years ago.

The rest, though, are in the side more for their goalkicking than the defensive side of their game – and Jack Gunston’s arrival just adds to that.

Gunston isn’t really a like-for-like for the outgoing Dan McStay, because at 31 and with a reputation as a dead-eye in front of goal, he’s likely to spend most of his time close to the big sticks rather than roaming up the ground as McStay did.

McStay did, however, play closer to goal in 2021 – no surprise given the arrival of an old-fashioned roaming centre-half forward in Joe Daniher – so a return to that year’s structure, with Daniher roaming, Gunston as the deepest tall and Eric Hipwood the go-between could easily work effectively. That, though, does depend on Hipwood being cherry-ripe to spend more time leading up the field after being eased back from a knee injury in a deeper role in 2022.

Lincoln McCarthy plays your classic ‘small who plays tall’ role and is generally always good for his goal or two a game; he also provide’s the lion’s share (no pun intended) of the ground-ball pressure inside Brisbane’s attacking 50. He’s no Cameron in terms of crumbing and goal nous, but then again, who is?

Expect to see Will Ashcroft spend most of his debut year in attack as well. One day soon, he’ll be leading the Lions’ on-ball brigade if his remarkable junior career is any guide, but he’s probably seventh or eighth in the pecking order for midfield minutes at this stage. He’ll probably prove me wrong and start in the centre bounce, but with his work rate, footy smarts and exceptional ball use, Ashcroft will still be more than capable of having a massive impact forward of centre.

First round AFL draft selections Bailey Humphrey of the Suns, Oliver Hollands of the Blues, Jaspa Fletcher of the Lions, Jhye Clark of the Cats, George Wardlaw of the Kangaroos, Will Ashcroft of the Lions, Aaron Cadman of the Giants, Harry Sheezel of the Kangaroos, Elijah Tsatas of the Bombers, Reuben Ginbey of the Eagles, Cameron Mackenzie of the Hawks, Jedd Busslinger of the Bulldogs and Mattaes Phillipou of the Saint. (Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

Brisbane Lions Best 23 2023

Backs: Brandon Starcevich, Harris Andrews, Darcy Gardiner

Half-backs: Daniel Rich, Marcus Adams*, Keidean Coleman

Centres: Hugh McCluggage, Lachie Neale, Zac Bailey

Followers: Oscar McInerney, Josh Dunkley, Jarrod Berry

Half-forwards: Cameron Rayner, Joe Daniher, Lincoln McCarthy

Forwards: Jack Gunston, Eric Hipwood, Charlie Cameron

Interchange: Noah Answerth, Will Ashcroft, Jarryd Lyons, Dayne Zorko (c)

Substitute: Deven Robertson

Emergencies: Jaspa Fletcher, Darcy Fort, Darcy Wilmot

^{* dependent on recovery from concussion}