Preview Brisbane Lions v Melbourne Demons - Friday, 28 June 2024, 7:40pm

[buttermuffs]

I thought it was Max Gawn climbing the light tower and pulling the plug King Kong style swatting fighter jets.

He faked the injury to do so, it checks out. Spent the next eight weeks in jail masqueraded as ‘injury’.

 

[Dalions]

 

[Dalions]

I think the boys will be keen to put in a full 4 quarter effort after our slack 4th quarter at the MCG earlier in the year easing their pain.
So Lions by 40

 

[KissKiss]

It was surprisingly hard to find the two chosen ones in the same shot

 

[irel]

View attachment 2028698
It was surprisingly hard to find the two chosen ones in the same shot

Yeah, Wash and Rayner look good together.

 

[irel]

View attachment 2028698
It was surprisingly hard to find the two chosen ones in the same shot

Yeah, now find Rayner and Barely Avritch together?

 

[KissKiss]

Yeah, now find Rayner and Barely Avritch together?

I feel like if I do this I will spend the day/week trawling through google photos

 

[Macca180]

Very confident.

We will flog them.

 

[irel]

Very confident.

We will flog them.

If history tells us anything, this team is prone to finding their bathwater a bit too tasty.
The Dees have their backs to the wall. After coming from a great performance this is the sort of game we tend not to turn up to.

 

[knaf]

If history tells us anything, this team is prone to finding their bathwater a bit too tasty.
The Dees have their backs to the wall. After coming from a great performance this is the sort of game we tend not to turn up to.

Feeling abit this way too. Great win on Saturday but I still find it hard to believe that Port played so badly. I hope the players don’t expect it to be as easy again.

 

[KissKiss]

If history tells us anything, this team is prone to finding their bathwater a bit too tasty.
The Dees have their backs to the wall. After coming from a great performance this is the sort of game we tend not to turn up to.

I tend to agree but at the same time I feel like we really dislike this current Melbourne team and lot of players will be fired up to rub their faces in it. The weeks after against Adelaide or WC away I have more fear of us losing motivation

 

[Ray Button]

What I'd like to see: Brisbane player in possession. Brisbane player looks up and sees Max Gawn somewhere. Brisbane player does literally anything but kick it in that direction. Holding the ball. Out on the full. Burst into tears & do a Petty-style jig. Anything. Just don't kick it down the line to Gawn. Please.

Agree absolutely!
As I've said before, kick it to where Gawn isn't.

 

[mpal6]

What I'd like to see: Brisbane player in possession. Brisbane player looks up and sees Max Gawn somewhere. Brisbane player does literally anything but kick it in that direction. Holding the ball. Out on the full. Burst into tears & do a Petty-style jig. Anything. Just don't kick it down the line to Gawn. Please.

We did a really good job on Aliir last round whenever he was on Daniher or Hipwood. They dragged him away to no man's land and it resulted in long kicks getting marked by the other talls.

I think Big O needs the same assignment. If we are doing a kick-in, just get on your bike and run Max Gawn ragged. Even if drags him from one side of the ground to another, it'll open up the non-ruck side for us to kick to and take possession.

 

[buttermuffs]

Agree absolutely!
As I've said before, kick it to where Gawn isn't.

We did pretty well the last two Melbourne games to not do this for most of it. Incredible liberal with switching opened up the ground both times and our game has only gotten more precise, picking apart the defence with short kicks.

 

[Zacs_Magic_Tooth]

If history tells us anything, this team is prone to finding their bathwater a bit too tasty.
The Dees have their backs to the wall. After coming from a great performance this is the sort of game we tend not to turn up to.

With our last 3 opponents this season being GWS, Collingwood and Essendon I really hope we don’t get ahead of ourselves. All will be fighting for places.
Far from out of the woods, and a slip up in the next 3 gettable games would put us back behind the curve

 

[McIvor]

 

[Nathan Barley]

The last time we played Melbourne at the Gabba

 

[Grasshopper17]

I would like to dedicate this match preview to my, no our, good friend danster168 . I thank Danny for his ongoing support and friendship.

Round 16. We are in the sweet spot that we like on the Brisbane Board, every week is a must win eight point danger game.

In the lead up to the game this week I think it is a good opportunity to appreciate the manner in which the boys have performed the last two months to turn the season around and put in some really strong performances.

Last time both teams met
Both teams met last at the MCG in Round 5. Our back was against the wall and we put in a sterling performance beating the Dees and notching our first win at the G since 2022.

On that night there was one standout player, Cameron ‘Round 5 MVP’ Rayner. Here is an extract from the official AFL match report:

Cam got all the votes that match and was named the Round 5 MVP!

Current Form - Brisbane

Brisbane come into this match in form having built a strong two month body of work. I think the keys have been:

• Our defence has remained solid and has slowly overcome the loss of Coleman early in the season and successive injuries to McKenna. Together with limiting scoring, we have begun to spread the load when it comes to transitioning the ball out of our D50 via Zorko, Wilmot and McKenna.
• Berry to the Midfield. With Berry moving into the midfield we now have a much more consistent and dependable looking midfield unit with a number of genuine ball winners and the ability to lock down (and in Berry’s case run off) the oppositions best mid.
• Forward connection. Our forward connection still isn’t quite there and is a bit of a week to week proposition but has improved a lot. At the end of the day it is a lot easier when Joe and Eric are on song and playing great footy, as is the case at the moment.
• The kids are alright. I think one thing that has at times been lost this season is how much our younger and less inexperienced guys have stepped up.
  • Logan Morris - an absolute gun who has shown great footy IQ, athleticism and a team oriented attitude. He is really what we wanted King Gunners to be last year.
  • Bruce Reville - has made an immediate contribution, primarily on the wing and is a lovely kick of the ball.
  • Shadeau Brain - hasn’t had much game time in the senior but has shown he has what it takes to play senior footy.
  • Jaspa Fletcher - I think we forget that Jaspa only turned 20 a few months ago. Our expectations for him are that of a 100 game 24 year old mainstay such is his skill and contribution on the wing.
  • Kai Lohmann - another who has made an immediate contribution following Linc’s ACL. Has shown natural skill and great workrate. We are lucky to have him.
  • Darcy Wilmot - another 20 year old that I think we view as a 100+ game player. Gives us that important line-breaking off HB and has had an awesome year.
  • Harry Sharp - Harry has been unlucky not to play more senior footy, having shown great form in both the seniors and VFL.

Current Form - Melbourne
Listen, I won’t mince words. It isn’t going great.

Compare the pair - key player focus
I want to compare two important players for both sides - gun young forward Logan Morris and Bayley Fritsch. Both taken at pick #31 in their respective drafts. Now I know what you’re saying, I can hear you loud and clear - “you’re crazy, Logan Morris plays a difficult position, has only just turned 19 years old and has only played 7 games while Fritsch has played 140. You can’t do this”.

Calm down BRAB and stop shouting me down, I know. So to make it fair I’ve compared their averages at the same age. I’m no David King but I think our boy Logan is well ahead.

Deep forward threat
After being offered and declining the Adelaide Crows lowball offer of 2 first round picks for Harrison Petty, master coach Simon Goodwin has made the tactically astute move of playing Petty deep forward the entire season.
Unfortunately I think Footywire’s stats are incorrect because it only shows a return of 4 goals for the entire season or 0.3 goals per game. That can’t be right.
Anyway, our defenders will need to be on guard otherwise Petty could kick a bag.

Will Ashcroft
What else is there to say. I don’t want to go overboard with this as he still needs to prove his fitness and be named in the squad, but fingers crossed. Here is my favourite photo of the little champion. Worth the price of admission.

Prediction
Lions by 10+ goals.

Want to get involved?
I want to see your favourite Cam Rayner or Will Ashcroft picture in this thread. Bonus points for both.

Great preview! Altho I expected nothing less to tell the truth.

I ran a few numbers on the two teams similar to the Port game. You're not wrong, Melbourne are a mess. There are basically 6 categories were we can be "got", and 5 of them are about hit outs. So obviously Oscar v Max will be a huge contest in the middle. Great opportunity for O to set the tone physically as he's been doing the last few weeks. He did pretty well against Max for basically a half in Round 5 before tiring, so a big test to see how well he can maintain the rage on Friday night.

The other stat to be wary of, at first glance, is "rebound 50s". We don't bring the ball out of our defensive 50 very much - #17 in the comp. But when I dug a bit deeper, it turns out when the ball doesn't go inside your defensive 50 very much in the first place (we are #3 in the AFL for conceding inside 50s), you don't have the opportunity to rebound at all. So this is a bit of a red herring.

On the other side of the coin, it's a list as long as your arm where we have been doing well of late AND Melbourne have been doing poorly. So long in fact it renders any analysis pointless and it really just boils down to "playing football".

So as long as we can stop Max playing an absolute blinder (not kicking it down his throat over and over again will be an excellent start), I think the only team that can beat Brisbane this Friday night, is Brisbane - and we have seen that happen already this season. I would like to see our guys approach the game with the right attitude and maintain that for 4 quarters.

The one caveat on all this is that according to the First Crack team last night, since the Freo game, Melbourne have reverted to their 2023 game plan of playing in straight lines and kicking long to contests, which seems to suit them better than trying to play a more uncontested style which they have tried in 2024. So we will need to be wary of this - hopefully we have scouted them well enough to spot this recent shift. It will make our ability to shift the ball laterally and into the corridor all the more important to get high quality inside 50s.

With Oliver struggling for form I wonder if Berry might instead go to Viney? Cut them off at the source and just deny them of any midfield ball. Thoughts?

 

[Elixuh]

Great preview! Altho I expected nothing less to tell the truth.

I ran a few numbers on the two teams similar to the Port game. You're not wrong, Melbourne are a mess. There are basically 6 categories were we can be "got", and 5 of them are about hit outs. So obviously Oscar v Max will be a huge contest in the middle. Great opportunity for O to set the tone physically as he's been doing the last few weeks. He did pretty well against Max for basically a half in Round 5 before tiring, so a big test to see how well he can maintain the rage on Friday night.

The other stat to be wary of, at first glance, is "rebound 50s". We don't bring the ball out of our defensive 50 very much - #17 in the comp. But when I dug a bit deeper, it turns out when the ball doesn't go inside your defensive 50 very much in the first place (we are #3 in the AFL for conceding inside 50s), you don't have the opportunity to rebound at all. So this is a bit of a red herring.

On the other side of the coin, it's a list as long as your arm where we have been doing well of late AND Melbourne have been doing poorly. So long in fact it renders any analysis pointless and it really just boils down to "playing football".

So as long as we can stop Max playing an absolute blinder (not kicking it down his throat over and over again will be an excellent start), I think the only team that can beat Brisbane this Friday night, is Brisbane. I would like to see our guys approach the game with the right attitude and maintain that for 4 quarters.

The one caveat on all this is that according to the First Crack team last night, since the Freo game, Melbourne have reverted to their 2023 game plan of playing in straight lines and kicking long to contests, which seems to suit them better than trying to play a more uncontested style which they have tried in 2024. So we will need to be wary of this - hopefully we have scouted them well enough to spot this recent shift. It will make our ability to shift the ball laterally and into the corridor all the more important to get high quality inside 50s.

With Oliver struggling for form I wonder if Berry might instead go to Viney? Cut them off at the source and just deny them of any midfield ball. Thoughts?

I saw that re their style change. The style doesn’t work as well though when you’re not feeding the ball out in that congestion to prime petracca, oliver, Brayshaw and Viney.

 

[KissKiss]

I feel like we are not a team you would want to kick long and straight to. Andrews, Payne and Lester are all very good intercept marks and it would play straight into their hand. Ball would likely be rebounding back pretty fast.

I feel like you could go Neale head to head with Viney and just keep doing what everyone else has done and tag out Oliver. Once tagged out his head is dropping at the moment and he's not putting in the work. Rather keep him not finding form against us.

 

[Dalions]

Great preview! Altho I expected nothing less to tell the truth.

I ran a few numbers on the two teams similar to the Port game. You're not wrong, Melbourne are a mess. There are basically 6 categories were we can be "got", and 5 of them are about hit outs. So obviously Oscar v Max will be a huge contest in the middle. Great opportunity for O to set the tone physically as he's been doing the last few weeks. He did pretty well against Max for basically a half in Round 5 before tiring, so a big test to see how well he can maintain the rage on Friday night.

The other stat to be wary of, at first glance, is "rebound 50s". We don't bring the ball out of our defensive 50 very much - #17 in the comp. But when I dug a bit deeper, it turns out when the ball doesn't go inside your defensive 50 very much in the first place (we are #3 in the AFL for conceding inside 50s), you don't have the opportunity to rebound at all. So this is a bit of a red herring.

On the other side of the coin, it's a list as long as your arm where we have been doing well of late AND Melbourne have been doing poorly. So long in fact it renders any analysis pointless and it really just boils down to "playing football".

So as long as we can stop Max playing an absolute blinder (not kicking it down his throat over and over again will be an excellent start), I think the only team that can beat Brisbane this Friday night, is Brisbane - and we have seen that happen already this season. I would like to see our guys approach the game with the right attitude and maintain that for 4 quarters.

The one caveat on all this is that according to the First Crack team last night, since the Freo game, Melbourne have reverted to their 2023 game plan of playing in straight lines and kicking long to contests, which seems to suit them better than trying to play a more uncontested style which they have tried in 2024. So we will need to be wary of this - hopefully we have scouted them well enough to spot this recent shift. It will make our ability to shift the ball laterally and into the corridor all the more important to get high quality inside 50s.

With Oliver struggling for form I wonder if Berry might instead go to Viney? Cut them off at the source and just deny them of any midfield ball. Thoughts?

Their switch should also make it easier for us to defend as they really don’t have a functioning forward line.
I guess for them it is more about being predictable to each other and also making it easier to defend on turnover.
The game has moved past this style of play and we will slow things down once we create a turnover and try and pierce our way through as we did in Round 5.

As long as we don’t return favour and continue to bomb the ball down the line we will be too strong for them imo.

 

[Dalions]

I feel like we are not a team you would want to kick long and straight to. Andrews, Payne and Lester are all very good intercept marks and it would play straight into their hand. Ball would likely be rebounding back pretty fast.

I feel like you could go Neale head to head with Viney and just keep doing what everyone else has done and tag out Oliver. Once tagged out his head is dropping at the moment and he's not putting in the work. Rather keep him not finding form against us.

Oliver is Berry’s Bitch!

 

[Nathan Barley]

Oliver is Berry’s Bitch!

I think Oliver is just a bitch now

 

[Denno]

snip

So as long as we can stop Max playing an absolute blinder (not kicking it down his throat over and over again will be an excellent start), I think the only team that can beat Brisbane this Friday night, is Brisbane - and we have seen that happen already this season. I would like to see our guys approach the game with the right attitude and maintain that for 4 quarters.

Yep - blatantly obvious we need to avoid playing into his hands - even if it means Oscar doesn't drift forward (as that hightens the risk of Gawn chopping things off in front of our key forwards). One thing I'd like to see us do if Gawn gets the ball, is force him to kick (rather than handball to someone running past). He can seriously butcher the ball, so let's force him to do so.

The bit in bold is exactly how I feel too. There is simply no argument that 23 v 23, Melb should win. We should have them comfortably covered.

The one caveat on all this is that according to the First Crack team last night, since the Freo game, Melbourne have reverted to their 2023 game plan of playing in straight lines and kicking long to contests, which seems to suit them better than trying to play a more uncontested style which they have tried in 2024. So we will need to be wary of this - hopefully we have scouted them well enough to spot this recent shift. It will make our ability to shift the ball laterally and into the corridor all the more important to get high quality inside 50s.

Even if they do, I think weight of midfield numbers should win out anyway (in our favour), as soon as the ball hits the ground.

With Oliver struggling for form I wonder if Berry might instead go to Viney? Cut them off at the source and just deny them of any midfield ball. Thoughts?

Went through my mind too. I still favour Berry going to Oliver - a) Oliver can turn it on out of seemingly nowhere (he's had a couple of big games this year already), b) Berry has history on Oliver, and now over the past 6 weeks (that's surely gotta be playing through Oliver's mind), and c) to be frank, I just don't think Viney is worth tagging. He too is an absolute butcher with ball in hand, and doesn't really worry me, in terms of potential "damage" as much as Oliver.

Maybe it'll be less a tag, and more a head to head, midfield v midfield. We should win that, all things considered.

A N-B will get someone - question if it's through the middle, or Zorko?

 

[werdna78]

Send Berry to Petty, give him something to really cry about.