Beams in the spotlight
BRISBANE captain Tom Rockliff expects Collingwood to “go after’’ ex-Magpie and gun Lions recruit Dayne Beams at the Gabba tonight.
Beams made a high-profile and highly charged switch from Collingwood to Brisbane in the off-season to be closer to his family on the Gold Coast and he will be the central figure in the Round 1 blockbuster.
Adding to occasion is Beams, 25, will play in the same Lions team as his brother Claye, 23.
The premiership player, All-Australian and Collingwood best-and-fairest winner was likened to movie star James Dean by senior coach Justin Leppitsch yesterday and he will need to be cool, calm and collected if he faces a physical and verbal onslaught.
“They’ll (Collingwood) probably go after him so it’s important that we look after him,’’ Rockliff said.
“Hopefully we can get the footy in his hands and he can have a really good impact on the game.
“He’s pretty casual. Nothing does seem to affect him but I’m sure he will get a little toey.
“Obviously there’s a lot of emotion in it for him and a lot of emotion for his old footy club so we are expecting they’ll come out pretty hard.
“There’s a little bit of extra spice in this game.’’
Rockliff said “controlled aggression’’ would be the key for the Lions who expect to play in front of a crowd nudging 30,000.
The last time pre-sales were this strong for a premiership match at the Gabba, Brendan Fevola was about to take on his old club Carlton in 2010.
“You don’t want to overstep the mark, you don’t want to be giving free kicks away (but) you want to set a hard tone,’’ Rockliff said.
“You want to put your head over the footy.
“You want to tackle hard … we think if we can get our contested footy right, we can smack in and get harder and lower than they do, that will give us an opportunity.
“We know if we can bring our intensity early, it sets the game up for us.’’
The weather forecast is for more rain in Brisbane today and the Lions have picked a smaller forward line with Daniel McStay and a resting ruckman out of Matthew Leuenberger and Stef Martin as the two key targets.