Review Round 1, 2025 - Sydney vs. Brisbane Lions

[Bucking Beads]

Maybe I missed something but there was no malice in it at all ,looked like a complete accident on my viewing. It was distressing to see Starce go down like he did.

And I'm normally the first one screaming when one of our guys gets hit.

They've copped it so obviously he did something wrong.

Didn't even appear to make contact with the head tbh. Hit his shoulder. Massive concerns for Starcevich now.

 

[Elixuh]

It’s terrible , we don’t have Foxtel/Kayo and we went out Sunday for a special event and got home in time for the footy , which wasn’t on .
So had to tell my son who has Foxtel not to let me know what was happening till I watched the game at 5pm .
Part of our game ritual is sharing messages through the game and it just all felt wrong .

We won’t be getting Foxtel , we looked into it and it’s just too expensive .

So 7mate and their constant advertising as all games free to air with 7 plus , was a lie .

Can’t your son give you a Foxtel login and you stream on Foxtel now or go or whatever it is? I think 2 people can watch at the same time.

 

[Elixuh]

AFL must have clearly set expectations on how they will interpret these incidents.

 

[Nathan Barley]

AFL must have clearly set expectations on how they will interpret these incidents.

At least for the first few weeks or until a Victorian, brownlow contender does the same

 

[Cockliff38]

Highlight was Blakey recreating his iconic grand final bed sh*tting. He must have nightmares about our Cal

 

[Dalions]

This is a sad site to see.

 

[Nunez]

This is a sad site to see.

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I am fairly certain that was a pisstake from Logan Morris Instagram.

 

[Elixuh]

This is a sad site to see.

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Sad to see the injury is worse than initially thought and he can’t walk anymore.

 

[Elixuh]

Lol???





Who we thinking tried to sledge Will on that - Crows mids? Suns mids, lol?

The obvious answer to such a dull sledge is

 

[GenericUsername202]

yeesh, it's a contact sport. If a lions player did this, i would have been fuming if he had have gotten 3 weeks for it. They even banned archer (a north player) because of a freak accident where the bulldogs player jumped in too low and was knocked out over it. The game is literally punishing players over freak accidents. Dillion and Laura Kane are legit running this game into the ground.

 

[Sproj]

yeesh, it's a contact sport. If a lions player did this, i would have been fuming if he had have gotten 3 weeks for it. They even banned archer (a north player) because of a freak accident where the bulldogs player jumped in too low and was knocked out over it. The game is literally punishing players over freak accidents. Dillion and Laura Kane are legit running this game into the ground.

The NRL has been doing this for years. Ban length is based on outcome of accidental injury too.

 

[Gadzorks]

Maybe I missed something but there was no malice in it at all ,looked like a complete accident on my viewing. It was distressing to see Starce go down like he did.

And I'm normally the first one screaming when one of our guys gets hit.

They've copped it so obviously he did something wrong.

I don't think there was malice but I can see that irrespective of intent a player could be distressed with the impact of their hit.

I get that it is part of the game they sign up to play, but emotional responses aren't based on that logic.

 

[Big Sauce 21]

Rayner 1 disposal in the 2nd half.

 

[martinson]

Rayner 1 disposal in the 2nd half.

It's not unusual.

His good is getting better but he's a burst player and when it happens it happens.

Maybe he could take a bit more care with his disposal overall.

When you're in the window you hope he produces to win you important games that you wouldn't win if you didn't have him.

It only takes a quarter sometimes

 

[Sproj]

We weren't actually that good in round 1 and yet still beat last year's grand finalists on their home turf with them being a bit more match hardened and we had injuries. Those kinds of winds are like gold. We have HEAPS of improvement in us.

 

[martinson]

We weren't actually that good in round 1 and yet still beat last year's grand finalists on their home turf with them being a bit more match hardened and we had injuries. Those kinds of winds are like gold. We have HEAPS of improvement in us.

We do. But I think GWS and Geelong who didn't make the GF are both better than Sydney all else being equal.

In fact there are only 6 or 7 teams that I'd totally rule out this year.

Could be a couple of surprise packets. It's important for us to be chalking up the wins because the last half of the year is going to be challenging.

Last Saturday was a big win.

 

[Grasshopper17]

Jordan Lewis must be disappointed

All the commentators sounded absolutely gutted. Dwayne Russell called the final moments as though he was at a funeral. Embarrassing lack of professionalism, not to mention a stunning absence of recognition of everything the playing group had been through over the last two weeks.

Saturday was arguably the most meritorious home and away win I think I've ever seen, certainly live in person.

• Dealing with a cyclone
• Not being able to train properly
• Playing an opponent who had already played a game
• On their home ground
• Linc McCarthy news
• Sam Day news
• Charlie's calf
• Lohmann's ankle
• Morris looked gone in the first quarter
• Fall 4 goals behind on multiple occasions
• Losing Starce at a pivotal stage in the last quarter

It took Josh Gabelich on AFL Daily and in a slot with Kane and Kingy on Monday morning to bring all this to people's attention.

Saturday was a remarkable victory: one of the great ones.

Also the Sydney crowd are like bloody church mice. None of them actually barrack. They're all just there for the 'gram. Surprised they'd show up at all actually; would have thought it would be too far from Bondi for most of them.

 

[Grasshopper17]

Cal didn't look too flash. Maybe a bit of cramp at the end.

Couldn't believe he took that shot for goal late in the game. Rayner was right there next to him when he marked it. Should have at least faked injury and let Cam take the shot.

 

[Grasshopper17]

Had 8 less inside 50s as well, didn't get many goals from clearances or defensive transition, if any

Forwards did a great job to capitalise on not a lot going their way

Yes if you look at the number of times we started with the ball (ie behinds conceded + clearance wins + intercepts), we had 125 possession chains. So to only manage 52 inside 50s (41.6%) was rather inefficient. Compare that with Sydney's 59 from 118, so bang on 50%.

I know Will and Levi got a lot of the ball which is promising... I guess the next step in their progression is to become more threatening and damaging with how they use it, putting the ball in advantageous positions for our forwards instead of waxing between them as they seem to like to do.

I was surprised and impressed with the fact that in the end, our makeshift forward line functioned pretty well really. 26 scoring shots from 52 entries is 50%, which is good going generally. Down the other end Sydney's 22 from 59 is only 37.3% so our defence really did hold up magnificently I thought.

And we even beat our expected score!

So to me the main areas of improvement are (a) improving how our midfield is able to convert possession into territorial advantage and (b) how can we get higher quality shots at goal. And both of these probably go hand in glove to an extent.

Very promising start with room for improvement!

 

[Grasshopper17]

No Levi in the middle for that standard 1st game.

I've noticed teams don't really do that any more. They douse the debutants with sports drink etc in the middle of the circle, but then the debutant(s) fall back into the full circle to sing the song. Same thing happened with the Richmond players on Thursday night.

 

[Grasshopper17]

Starce needs to come back with one of those specialised helmets. I'm not entirely sure if it would do much, but if he keeps playing like this, I wouldn't be surprised if he was forced to retire in the next year or so. Concussion is a serious issue in the sport and the league will be coming hard on the lions considering how often it's happening to him. The spotlight has been placed firmly on him today and that creates another problem. Even the slightest worry, the league could pressure the lions to medically remove him from the game in the future. This could effect not only the way he plays (as he might have to go at 60%) to reduce the chances of it, but you're potentially selecting a player who might not even run out a game.

I know this would never happen, certainly not in this country, but there's a parallel reality in which, possibly years down the track, Starce initiates legal action on Izak Rankine for his premeditated bump on him last year which resulted in his first concussion. It was hardly as though Rankine's actions were "part of the game". It would be reasonable to argue that if he hadn't got that first one he might not have got these most recent two.

 

[braddsey]

I've noticed teams don't really do that any more. They douse the debutants with sports drink etc in the middle of the circle, but then the debutant(s) fall back into the full circle to sing the song. Same thing happened with the Richmond players on Thursday night.

It always felt like borderline hazing to me. Probably not quite, but the players in the middle always look uncomfortable/awkward. Better to pull them back into the circle and be part of the team singing.

 

[p4p1]

Three weeks for a possible career ending hit. I'd take the three to try and make myself feel better.

I don’t think there was much in it tbh.
Unfortunate for Starce but the decision to play 2 weeks after a concussion, not that I am against that decision, but playing and choosing not to wear a helmet are bigger decisions that could lead to a career ending rather than a fairly innocuous hit with accidental head contact.

 

[p4p1]

yeesh, it's a contact sport. If a lions player did this, i would have been fuming if he had have gotten 3 weeks for it. They even banned archer (a north player) because of a freak accident where the bulldogs player jumped in too low and was knocked out over it. The game is literally punishing players over freak accidents. Dillion and Laura Kane are legit running this game into the ground.

Opposition players and/or coaches from the impacted players team coming out against the bans shows how badly the AFL are ****ing this up IMO.

 

[Grasshopper17]

The 2 main things I hated about the coverage was the camera work and the commentary.

The camera seemed have far too many wide angle shots. I felt so far away from the game that I couldn’t tell who had the ball or what was happening in the contest. It felt like the old NEAFL coverage on YouTube.

The commentary was dour they seemed to be mumbling. It was an exciting game between last years grand finalists that was decided by less than a goal and the commentators sounded like they were covering a golf tournament.

Magnificent win btw.

The problem at the SCG is that the main camera is always far too low. Gives a real suburban footy feel to proceedings which I do not rate for an AFL level game.