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Opinion
A month is a long time in football.
It’s enough time to see the reactionary spectrum that’s always on show in the AFL, where opinions change dependent on results when ultimately, there’s a bigger picture at play.
After the first four weeks of the season, the Lions sit just inside the top eight having split their games, with home wins against slightly depleted flag contenders Melbourne and Collingwood and away losses to fringe finals contenders Port Adelaide and the Bulldogs.
The wins were good. The Lions were met with big pressure heading into both fixtures and controlled the games at vital times to win.
The losses were bad. Like, “not even a contender” bad.
Now, met with a fortnight of fixturing that’ll likely result in big wins and an elevation into the top four and after taking a big scalp, it seems an appropriate time to judge the Lions.
Regular readers may be familiar with last year’s notion that the Lions were the big losers of the AFL trade period by not getting any better.
Granted, we have seen good individual signs out of Josh Dunkley, Will Ashcroft, Conor McKenna and Jack Gunston, yet so far, there seems to be something failing at the Lions.
A quick revisiting of last season indicates that they were arguably the best team through the middle, were efficient going forward and were amongst the league’s highest scorers. Defensive failings were where they fell apart and no improvement was made.
Charlie Cameron of the Lions celebrates a goal. (Photo by Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
Like 2022, Brisbane has been one of the league’s premier clubs through the midfield to start 2023, averaging the most clearances per game and owning the second-highest contested possession rate.
Yet this powerful offensive unit, one that would win the ball on the inside and get it forward, the one that would transition quickly out of defence and take as many metres as possible to be direct going forward, has dropped off.
Daniel Rich has been absent for a couple of games and that’s been a tough injury to deal with – he’s one of the best players in the league in terms of his function in getting scores off half-back.
However, seeing a drop-off in offensive output that is paired with similar defensive woes is a genuine concern that results shouldn’t mask.
In 2022, the Lions averaged 55.7 inside 50s per game, ranked sixth in the competition, and scored in 43.99% of their entries. They ranked fifth for metres gained, sixth for marks inside 50 and averaged 6.22 disposals per inside 50, which was the third-lowest ratio in the league, indicate directness.
Through the opening month of the season, Brisbane is averaging 50.2 inside 50s, good for 14th. They’re only scoring 42.03% of the time they go forward, which is comfortably worse than West Coast and North Melbourne for reference.
They’re ranked 16th for metres gained, 10th for marks inside 50 and they’re ratio has only slipped marginally to 6.38 disposals per inside 50, but this is around the mark of most good teams this season with the majority of the competition playing more direct to kick off 2023.
Perhaps more alarming overall is the fact that it feels like the Lions are being dictated to, rather than being the ones in control and flexing over the opposition.
As a rule, the directness in style of play has meant Brisbane isn’t a high-possession team, but they’re average of 320.5 disposals per game is well and truly last in the league, some 26 disposals off their average last season.
More pertinently, they averaged around the same number of disposals as their opponents in games last season, but are operating at a -56 disposals per game rate in 2023.
In Dunkley, they’ve added one of the better tacklers in the league which was hypothetically going to add more pressure in the midfield and stop transitions but as previously discussed, he doesn’t do much defensive work in the back half.
Still though, this team averaged 57.2 tackles per game in 2022 which while only good enough for 12th, far exceeds the 47.5 tackles per game to start this year, ranking the club 17th. Considering how much more of the ball Brisbane’s opposition is getting.
If we only look at the numbers, it would seem that there’s been a drop-off in pressure and while that still holds true, there’s also been a shift to a more zone-based defence to try and fix last season’s woes.
(Photo by Scott Barbour/Getty Images)
The number of one-on-ones defended by the Lions has dropped off given how average their defenders performed last season, although Harris Andrews’ form has continued to be solid and Darragh Joyce is defending well. Brandon Starcevich has lost a third of his contests which perhaps indicates too small a sample size.
If we were concerned about Brisbane conceding 89.11 points per game in the second half of 2022, we’re probably concerned with the similar figure this season too.
They conceded a score in 43.82% of inside 50s last year, this season it’s 43.3%, but they’re conceding five more inside 50s per game. In 2022, they conceded 11.2 marks inside 50 per game, ranked seventh. This season, it’s 13.8, ranked fourth.
Numbers are not the be all and end all but they help paint a picture that matches the eye-test in watching the Lions play.
Data analysts hate the word “momentum” given it’s unquantifiable and in the view of some, a cop out way of describing what’s happening in front of them, but no team is perhaps as mentally reliant on quick goals as the Lions.
Any break in play or any time the opposition control the ball, the Lions fall back and try and defend rather than aggressively pursue their opponents. Maybe it’s part of Chris Fagan’s plan, he has to try change something, but at the moment, it’s a bit iffy.
It seems clear watching Brisbane that when they attack, they’re attacking and when they try to defend, they’re defending. As a group of words on a screen, there’s never been a more obvious statement but in football, teams are far more fluid and the best teams are mixing attack with defence in all moments of a game.
There’s evidence that fluidity and adaptability create success, whereas there has been that disjointed feeling that there’s the offensive side of the Lions and defensive side of the Lions as two separate entities – and they’re not doing all that well in either.
Is it the end of the world for the Lions? Truthfully, no. A month is enough time to analyse the style of play and the numbers, but it’s also a small sample size, given clubs are playing 23 matches this season.
There’s plenty of time for Brisbane to continue to work through their issues and wins against flag contenders will help them.
Certainly though, there is cause for concern. Adding two extra midfielders has pushed Hugh McCluggage into no man’s land and his form has dropped off, Neale and Dunkley are still trying to form a strong partnership, the forward line looks brilliant when the Lions are on top and dismal when they’re not and it doesn’t feel like there’s enough accountability off half-back with McKenna replacing Noah Answerth.
We can’t let results mask the way teams are actually playing and despite a couple of scalps, something has to change at Brisbane to be a true premiership contender in 2023 as they’d aimed for to start the season.
They have a soft fixture to the bye which will likely see them sitting in the top four, but wins don’t matter if not done the right way.
A month is a long time in football and the Lions have to start playing better.