Lions Assistant Coach Jade Rawlings today declared that both Brown and Fevola would play in the pre-season game so that the Club could put into practice all the work that has been done with the highly publicised forward pairing on the training track.
“Everyone keeps talking about how these two guys are going to play together,” Rawlings said.
“You can do it as much as you want in training, but playing against another opposition is a completely different thing.”
“Hopefully they’ll be able to get a good feel about each other and work well together up forward.”
While Fevola has dominated headlines this week in the lead-up to his first match against his former side, Rawlings said that this week’s opposition was not a determining factor in whether he was selected or not.
“Brendan was keen to play and we were happy to play him,” Rawlings said.
“He’s had a really thorough pre-season and wants to keep ticking along by having another competitive hitout. It’s more about our preparations for Round One against West Coast rather than our plans on playing Carlton this weekend.”
“We’ve been pretty detailed in what we want to get out of our pre-season and what kind of workload we place on our players.”
There will certainly still be a sense of occasion this Friday at Visy Park as Fevola prepares to play against his former team-mates. But exactly how it might affect the Lions full-forward is still unknown.
“Only he would be able to answer that,” Rawlings said.
“From my own experience, when you come up against you old team there is always a bit extra pressure and nerves beforehand.”
“But once you get out there playing, you really don’t get affected by that stuff.”
Rawlings was also pleased to introduce recruits Andrew Raines and Matt Maguire to the side for their first official match in Lions colours.
“It’s great to see those two play,” he said.
“They’ve both had limited pre-seasons but they have really ramped up their workrate in the last month or so.”
“Matt Maguire is a good story because he’s been able to come back and play after some serious injuries.”
“He’s been competing against Brown and Fevola a lot at training so should be well prepared for when he lines up on other quality forwards.”
“He actually had a really good month at Carlton which gave him a reasonable level of conditioning before we picked him up last November. He hasn’t missed a beat and is a genuine chance for Round One.”
“Raines is probably the fittest he has been for three years. He has had some interruptions with that kneecap but is looking much more agile now.”
“It will be good to have both those guys rubbing shoulders with their team-mates.”
