BRISBANE Lions coach Michael Voss is playing down the performance of his players after their round one win over the Eagles.
Voss was at pains to point out we are only one game into the season and the likes of Rhan Hooper, who booted four goals after a tumultuous summer, need to perform week in, week out.
"Now what we’ve got to be able to do is quickly adapt our minds from round one to the season,” Voss said.
“So much effort goes in getting the boys ready for round one you can sometimes forget about round two.
“We’ve got to make sure that we shift our focus very quickly from a good result and something to savour for the first 24 hours, but with the realisation that we’ve got things to do and things to work on, and now we've got an opposition that is in pretty good form.”
The Lions take on a rampant Carlton at Docklands on Saturday night and Voss said there was still plenty of work to do as he moulds the side around his own game plan.
“I wouldn’t say that we habitually have things in order at the moment and that just takes time and patience,” Voss said.
“We’ll continue to educate and we'll continue to look at things and see how we can do things better until we reach that point where we're really only tinkering with things as opposed to really trying to drill the players week after week.
"We’re probably still in that phase and probably will be for quite a while, at least for the first 12 months.”
Game one of the Voss era also produced a welcome range of goal kickers.
Saturday night's win was the first time since round one 2007 that neither Jonathan Brown or Daniel Bradshaw has not been the side's leading goal kicker.
Hooper booted four, Brown and Bradshaw three each, Travis Johnstone two, and Ash McGrath and Michael Rischitelli one apiece.
Sharing the load in front of goal is exactly what the coach was looking for.
“It’s a nice balance to have,” Voss said.
“It just adds a few different things to your attack, so it was good to be able to get that on the scoreboard and not just rely on Browny or Braddy to kick a winning score.”
Voss wasn't keen to single out star players for praise, like Hooper or 18 year old debutant Daniel Rich (21 disposals).
“I think there’s been a lot of guys that have stepped up and gone beyond what I thought they might have been able to do,” Voss said
“We had some outstanding individual efforts, you get that every game.
"What we’re after is making sure that we get efforts every single time from more people out in the game and that way we don’t rely on one or two players.”
The first-year coach also denied the Lions' stunning nine-goal blitz in the third quarter was the result of a verbal spray at half time.
“I don’t know where news filtered from but it wasn’t a spray, I can tell you, there was no such thing,” Voss said.
“I don’t want to be a 'rant and raver' coach, that’s for sure, the players want to hear clear, concise information and that’s what you try to provide.”
