Young players step up as Brisbane earn respect

CHRIS Fagan was disappointed in Brisbane’s loss to Adelaide on Saturday night but the game left him with some food for thought about his side’s development.

The measurable statistic is the reduced margins over the past three meetings against the Crows – 138 points in Round 20, 2016, 80 points in Round 9 last year and five points on Saturday night.

According to Fagan, it is proof the Lions are starting to compete with the big dogs.

It is the other intangible factors that would have Fagan convinced his side was on the right track.

Although a five- point loss to the Crows is still a decent achievement, it was the way the game panned out that was more interesting.

The Crows rushed Mitch McGovern straight back into the AFL side after a long layoff and the Lions saw that as a sign of increasing respect the rest of the competition was showing them.

Sides now put defensive planning into matches against Brisbane. It began with the odd tag to skipper Dayne Zorko but Fagan says now the opposition’s analysis was becoming more thorough every week.

Brisbane’s best players on Saturday included Darcy Gardiner, Nick Robertson and Alex Witherden. The former pair have been considered honest battlers for most of their careers so far while the latter is in just his second year.

It must be said that Gardiner now deserves a new title after another stellar performance while Robertson has become very difficult to score against, yet it is still unexpected to see them frequently appearing among the best players.

But while the feature of the Lions’ three- peat of victories was the 22- man contribution, there were several Lions down on their form of recent weeks against the Crows.

Eric Hipwood had a tough night, Lewy Taylor and Mitch Robinson had little impact for the first three quarters, while senior players Daniel Rich and Dayne Beams were also down on their recent form.

“That’s because the oppo- sition put a bit of homework into us and no doubt plan to stop a few of our players,” Fagan said.

Fagan acknowledged the majority of wins, or even honourable losses, in the past 18 months have been on the back of starring performances from a couple of the side’s bigger names and he said reducing the dependency on the stars had always been a key to the side’s development.

“Last year we relied on our more senior players to play really well and now we can trust our younger players to step up.”