The Lions haven’t beaten the Swans since round one 2004 but Roos said those statistics were misleading.
“We’ve always had hard games against them. We might have a winning record against Brisbane, but they’ve never been one-sided games. I remember several of them going down to the wire,” he said before training on Thursday night.
“The reality is, everyone knows everyone else’s record. We know we struggle to beat Adelaide and we struggle to beat Collingwood. Everyone knows that.
“I don’t think it really matters how you handle it. If you come out and say they’re a bogey side, or come out and say they’re not, I don’t think it has any bearing on the game. We’ve got to play really, really well.”
The Swans have named an unchanged team to take on the Lions at the Gabba, but some doubt remains about the fitness of key forward Barry Hall, who suffered a groin strain in the final quarter against Hawthorn last weekend.
Roos rated Hall a 50/50 chance earlier in the week and he said Hall’s condition had since improved.
“As long as he runs and runs without pain, we’ll take him up there. I suspect that will be a formality, but it won’t guarantee that he plays,” he said.
“He’ll need to tick some boxes before the weekend. At this stage, he’s probably 70/30, 80/20, but there’s still some doubt.”
Roos said emergencies Mike Pyke and Ed Barlow were likely to travel with the team to Brisbane as cover.
The Lions have launched remarkable second-half comebacks in the first two rounds of the season, eventually overhauling West Coast and falling short of Carlton.
Rather than identifying it as a trademark of Voss’s team, Roos said it was more a reflection of the team’s struggle to maintain effort early in the season.
“Like other teams, ourselves included, it’s the consistency… we didn’t get it in round one against St Kilda, we got it in round two against Hawthorn,” he said.
“For Vossy, he’s had some great quarters of footy and they’re 1-1, the same as us.
“They’re certainly potent. We know they’ve got some great players still and those great players have an amazing ability to have a fantastic influence on the game.”
