Speaking before Saturday night’s match against Essendon at the Gabba, Leppitsch said the Lions were not implementing everything the first-year coach hoped to achieve.
However, he said it was no excuse for Sunday’s embarrassing 93-point loss to Geelong which came down to a simple lack of competitiveness.
“I think a big part of what we do will take some transition, but I don’t think that was the reason on the weekend, regardless of who was coaching I don’t think it would have mattered,” he said.
“Just the general effort of the players, no matter what you tried under what coach, you’ve got to have a baseline of competitiveness and that was lacking.
“We still haven’t got what we want to do right for the season and that’s the bit that might take time under the new coach.
“It might take a year, it might take two years to get the way we want to play in place every week before we start tinkering with ourselves against the opposition.”
While the Lions statistically have the worst kicking efficiency in the league, Leppitsch said the problem was not as bad as it seemed and their direct style of game was more likely to lead to a lower efficiency.
“We also have the least amount of possessions to get inside 50, which means you don't play around with the ball,” he said.
“When you don't do that, you have a lower possession rate and possession effectiveness. Geelong are quite good (efficiency-wise) because they give a lot of quick, 1m handballs, which are always effective so if you look at percentage of effectiveness that can be misleading.”
The triple-premiership defender admitted Sunday’s hammering took the first two days of the week to get over emotionally, but said the Lions were now ready for the Bombers.
Essendon has piled on an average of 147 points per contest the last three times the teams have met and Leppitsch said the Lions would have to shut down the Bombers’ speedsters.
“They’re a team that love to own the corridor and love to use their pace, the Lovetts, players like that, Winderlich’s a quick player, they’ve got a lot of pace that they like to get the ball in their hands and break the lines,” he said.
“They tend to be very handball-happy side until they find those players and break the lines, so our tackling pressure, like every week, is going to have to be exceptional.
“It wasn’t last week so that’s the part of the game we’re going to have to focus on this week.”
