The Brisbane Lions have named three potential debutants in a 25-man squad for Sunday’s home clash with Melbourne, but mobile defender Joel Patfull says the bottom-of-the-table Demons won’t be taken lightly.

With Colm Begley out with a quad injury and Ash McGrath omitted, the Lions have included 2007 draftees Lachlan Henderson, Tom Collier, Bradd Dalziell and James Polkinghorne, along with midfielder Scott Harding.

Collier, Dalziell and Polkinghorne are yet to play an AFL game.

”Obviously Melbourne hasn’t had a good start to the year but they still have plenty of dangerous players and a fair bit of experience,” Patfull said.

”They had a couple of big losses in the first couple of weeks but they’ve been pretty competitive the last few matches and I’m sure they will want to continue that.

”It’s just been a couple of bad quarters for them that have allowed other teams to kick away.”

The Demons have included Matthew Bate, Colin Garland, Simon Buckley, Brad Miller and Matthew Warnock to cover for the suspended Matthew Whelan and injured skipper David Neitz.

Both teams will trim their squads to 22 on Friday afternoon.

Teams:

BRISBANE LIONS
B: Michael Rischitelli, Daniel Merrett, Jared Brennan
HB: Joel Macdonald, Joel Patfull, Cheynee Stiller
C: Jed Adcock, Travis Johnstone, Anthony Corrie
HF: Rhan Hooper, Jonathan Brown, Tim Notting
F: Justin Sherman, Daniel Bradshaw, Matthew Leuenberger
Foll: Jamie Charman , Simon Black, Luke Power
I/C (from): Tom Collier, Robert Copeland, Bradd Dalziell, Scott Harding, Lachlan Henderson , James Polkinghorne, Troy Selwood

MELBOURNE
B: James Frawley, Nathan Carroll, Daniel Bell
HB: Paul Wheatley, Jared Rivers, Cameron Bruce
C: Brad Green, Brock McLean, Clint Bartram
HF: Cale Morton, Russell Robertson, Colin Sylvia
F: Aaron Davey, Brad Miller, Austin Wonaeamirri
Foll: Jeff White, James McDonald, Nathan Jones
I/C: Matthew Bate, Simon Buckley, Lyden Dunn, Colin Garland, Mark Jamar, Brent Moloney, Matthew Warnock

On the punt:

The Lions are poised to start as UNiTAB favourites for only the second time this season – and overwhelmingly so. Leigh Matthews’ side is listed at $1.06, with Melbourne at a whopping $8. A Lions win of 40 points or more will be the most popular margin result at $1.70.

Daniel Bradshaw continues to shorten as a Coleman Medal fancy and is now outright third favourite at $4.50 behind Lance Franklin and Brendan Fevola. The real value is now being offered about Jonathan Brown at $17. Brown is currently 16 goals behind Franklin but kicked 53 goals in the last 11 matches of 2007 – a similarly sustained surge of form this year would have him right back in the hunt.

Key match-up:

Daniel Bradshaw (Lions) v Nathan Carroll (Melbourne) – whether Carroll ends up manning  Bradshaw or Brown, Melbourne fans will have their hearts in their mouths. Lions fans, on the other hand, may well be licking their lips. The Demons have struggled to contain the Lions’ big forwards in recent times, allowing Bradshaw to kick nine goals in their 2005 clash and eight in 2006. Brown kicked a comparatively “small” six majors when the two sides met in Round 15 of last year

Odds and sods:

***While Lions forwards have dominated against the Demons in recent times, the opposite has been true for Melbourne’s Russell Robertson. The 2003 best-and-fairest winner kicked 159 goals from 61 games through seasons 2005, 2006 and 2007, but only six came in three clashes with the Lions. The majority of those came in Round 14 of 2005, in which he kicked four goals in a 74-point Melbourne defeat.

***Melbourne has won the last quarter of its past two matches. Unfortunately these are the only two quarters the Demons have won all year. Melbourne’s percentage of 53 is well below that of second-bottom West Coast (70) and, if sustained over a full season, would represent the lowest mark since Fitzroy in 1996 (49.5)

***None of Melbourne’s retirees from the end of last year were superstars. But the combined games of Clint Bizzell, Nathan Brown, Ryan Ferguson, Simon Godfrey, Byron Pickett and Daniel Ward amounted to a tick over 800. Throw in the trade of Travis Johnstone to the Lions and the experience lost was more than 950 games. By comparison, the Lions lost less than 550, despite losing a triple-premiership winner (Chris Johnson), a dual premiership player (Chris Scott) and a premiership player (Richard Hadley).