BRISBANE Lions coach Chris Fagan has challenged his side to help Dayne Zorko shake off the taggers, after his struggling vice-captain had another quiet game against Greater Western Sydney.
Zorko had just 10 touches at Spotless Stadium as the Lions went down to GWS 10.17 (77) to 5.13 (43) on Saturday night.
It continued a frustrating fortnight for the tough on-baller, who was accused of bad sportsmanship after last-week's Q-Clash loss to Gold Coast.
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Zorko refused to shake hands with the Suns’ Touk Miler, who had tagged him out of the match.
The 29-year-old struggled to have an impact against the Giants midfield, but did not have a minder like he did against the Suns.
"He kept trying hard, he's getting a lot of attention at the moment," Fagan said.
"What needs to happen – as he has done this year and will continue to do so – he'll find ways to work his way through it.
"We need to become better in the midfield so that you can't just easily target one guy to slow him down.
"It's a mixture of things. He had a pretty tough week. I thought he kept trying tonight but it didn't work out for him.
"It wasn't for a lack of a good attitude, but they (the Giants) went to work on him and did a reasonably good job."
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Fagan took plenty of positives out of Saturday night's defeat.
Skipper Dayne Beams shone with 29 touches, while Daniel Rich returned from a foot injury to gather 28 touches. Mitch Robinson had 20 contested possessions while Darcy Gardiner kept GWS spearhead Jeremy Cameron to just one goal.
"In the past, maybe at half-time we could have been considered to be on the ropes and an easy kill for GWS," Fagan said.
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"I think in the second half there was one point the difference on the scoreboard.
"I thought the team showed plenty of fight. I look back to when we played them last year at the Gabba and they kicked 146 points. Tonight it was 77.
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"So we're improving defensively and I just thought our spirit in general was really good.
"When you consider the team we put out there tonight we had 15 guys 23 years of age or younger. Four boys under 10 games. I thought there was a lot of bright lights there for us."
The Lions, who are winless six rounds into 2018, take on Collingwood at the Gabba next Sunday. A loss would see them equal their worst start to a season since the merger.
