BRISBANE Lions coach Justin Leppitsch says he sees himself as a first-year coach after spending much of his time in the job turning over the playing list.
Leppitsch was appointed at the end of 2013 after Michael Voss was sacked, and Sunday's win against Essendon marked the club's 13th win in that period, compared to 48 losses.
Of the players on the Lions' list in 2014, 18 are no longer at the club.
"One thing I've learned is there's always two games going on. There's the one internally – which is the most important one – and the one externally," Leppitsch said after the 37-point win.
Watch Justin Leppitsch's full media conference here
"To be honest, I feel like a first-year coach, whereas the public sees me as a third-year coach.
"That might be the difference in how we perceive each other. I feel the club sees me as a first-year coach more than a third-year coach, given the fact that all I've done for two years is strip the list back.
"Not a lot of coaching in that. But now it's time to grab these boys and build on them."
He pointed to the challenges of leading a young team, and the fundamental errors that needed to be fixed for the Lions to be lifted out of the doldrums.
"The mistakes like: you handball into a bloke's hands and he bats it down, and things like that, that mature players don't do. They're called skill development things that take a period of time," he said.
"The ball goes out of bounds – they need those 10 seconds to rest, not to organise.
"We know we're facing those challenges every week, but the guys were better in those areas today."
The Lions won the midfield battle from the start of the match when they kicked the first three goals of the game.
"The midfield work was very good. We lost the inside-50 count and scoring shots in the end, but we were really poor that last 10 minutes. That kind of took away from a really good performance," the coach said.
"There was a patch in the second where we lost our way a little bit, mainly led by the (David) Zaharakis-(Mitch) Robinson match-up. They were playing tricks with that, which we kind of got on the back foot a little, but then sort of steadied the ship in the second half."
The Lions won clearances by 14, despite entering the contest as the worst team at winning the ball from stoppages this season. Mitch Robinson (eight clearances), Tom Rockliff (seven), Dayne Zorko (six) and Stefan Martin (six) led the team in that area.
While the win should assure Leppitsch's team does not finish on the bottom, pressure will doubtless still be on the coach with his side at 2-15, and having just ended an equal-club record 12-match losing streak.
However, he was adamant his discussions with the board were solely about improving the club.
"I think about what the external will say, but every conversation I've had internally is not like that," he said.
"It's more about how we plan our pathway, how are we going to improve the development of our guys.
"At footy sub-committee (meeting) last week, (it was about) how we're going to approach our future with getting player improvement quicker, and better than most.
"We want to get a really good development department in to make sure (Eric) Hipwood and (Josh) Schache and (Ben) Keays get there quicker. They're all the conversations we have."
