BRISBANE delivered a brave performance at the Adelaide Oval on Saturday but coach Chris Fagan said the players will be bitterly disappointed they couldn’t stage the upset of the season so far.
Under siege in the third quarter and down by three goals at the final change, only the most optimistic Lions supporter would have expected the match to go down to the wire.
“I would imagine they would be lamenting some of the opportunities that they missed,” Fagan said.
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“They will be proud of themselves and I’ll make sure that they are because they deserve a pat on a back.
“But they are clearly trying to become a winning team and so a loss isn’t acceptable and that’s how they feel.
“We talk about resilience a lot and we’ve showed that in the three games that we’ve played this year, but we don’t have anything to show for it.”
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While the loss was hard to take, Fagan said the development of the younger players shows the club is travelling in the right direction.
Eric Hipwood kicked two goals in the pressure-cooker final quarter and Hugh McCluggage hit the scoreboard when the match was up for grabs.
“That’s what we want our guys to be able to do, to be able to play under pressure in the big games, so it’s very encouraging that some of our 19-year-olds and 20-year-olds are doing that for us in the big moments,” Fagan said.
The Lions were hurt by the sliding rule with Allen Christensen penalised for his attack on the footy against Dougal Howard in the first quarter, the Lions streaming towards goal when the decision was made.
But Fagan said he supports the rule.
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“It’s the players’ instinct sometimes to dive in and under but there’s probably less of it in the game now and there just happened to be a few today, so that’s how the cookie crumbles,” he said.
“It’s designed to stop people hurting their knees and we’ve seen some horrific knee injuries over the years where a guy is sliding in courageously to win the footy but taken the legs out, and people missed 12 months of footy.
“It’s one of those health and safety type things that the AFL have brought in and we all understand it.”
Meantime Dayne Beams will now look to play his 150th game against Richmond at the MCG next Saturday.
The Lions captain trained with his teammates in Adelaide on Friday afternoon but became sick overnight.
Brisbane made the call not to play him on Saturday morning.
