AS THE regular season enters its climactic final month, Leigh Matthews refuses to be drawn into complex finals calculations. He says, quite simply, that his Lions will be fine as long as they keep winning, starting with the Hawks on Saturday.

With six teams seemingly aiming for the final two top-eight spots, Matthews agreed Brisbane’s season remained on a knife-edge, but maintained that had been the case for a while.

“All we’re doing at the moment is if we win we remain in contention and if we lose we kind of slip out of contention,” Matthews said before the Lions’ final training session in Melbourne on Friday.

“But that’s been the basic situation now for a lot of weeks because we were a long way behind in terms of our win-loss ratio.

“If we’re eighth and we do better than the teams from ninth to sixteenth, whatever they do in the meantime all we’ve got to do is do better. If that meant the bottom half weren’t going to win another game and we didn’t win another game well then I guess we’d end up eighth, but that’s unlikely.”

The Lions take a five-game winning streak into their clash with the Hawks. Hawthorn will likely get a few numbers back to try to quell the influence of power forward Jonathan Brown, but Matthews backed his players to think their way through any such tactics.

“Hawthorn are a team that probably will tend to get the extra player or two back in the back part of the ground, whether that’s a loose man in defence or whether it’s wingers dropping back,” he said.

“The opposition can play 18 blokes in the back 50 if they choose to; it’s pretty hard to score though.”

The marquee match-up of Jonathan Brown versus Trent Croad has received plenty of attention in the lead-up to the match, but Matthews disagreed the winner of that duel will determine which team comes away with the premiership points.

“Nah, nothing’s the key [by itself],” he said. “The defence is the key, the midfield’s the key, the forward line’s the key; it’s how big a contribution you get out of your whole 22.

“Jonathan’s in good form, but Jared Brennan’s in good form, [so are] Wayde Mills and Robert Copeland, that whole group that have been playing forward of the ball – Rhan Hooper, you chuck him in there too – that group’s been pretty good.”

The match will have special significance for Fitzroy supporters with the Lions set to wear the old ‘Roys guernsey for the clash with the last remaining active AFL player to have worn the colours in 1996, Chris Johnson, taking part. 

“I think he just wants to get back into the team to be honest. I reckon he’d play bare-chested,” Matthews said of the co-captain who is back from a foot injury he suffered back in round 10.

“The fact that he’s the one player that wore the guernsey that we’re wearing tomorrow in games every week gives him a little bit extra I think and [likewise] for the supporters, for that matter, with the long memories who can remember Johnno being out there a decade or so ago.”