Speaking after his side’s 52-point win over North Melbourne on Sunday, Lyon said he was satisfied with most of the game but a third-quarter lapse was one worrying aspect of the day.
“You’d rather be winning than losing but we’ve got plenty to work on. There are some high calibre teams around at the moment, particularly sitting in the top four,” Lyon said.
“You can’t have quarter lapses because you are going to get hurt really quickly. You have a real purpose to come and train. We’ve got a short week and we’ve had double the amount of short weeks this year to what we had last year so we’ve worked through that pretty well."
Lyon delivered a stern message to his players at the final change that taking the foot off the pedal was not the done thing for a team gearing up for its seventh finals campaign in eight years.
“I thought we didn’t play in the manner we wanted. We were easy to play against. We had six tackles and I really didn’t like the whole malaise. There was maybe an attitude that we are just going to keep rolling on from here,” he said.
“They were a pretty desperate group today, North, and they are playing for a spot in the finals. I just felt that every time we could have gone beyond five or six goals (in front) we’d make a skill error.
“At three-quarter time I really implored the group to really work hard on their competing and pressure and not be flippant. I really liked how we went about it in the last quarter.”
The star of the day was Nick Riewoldt, who played his best game since returning from a hamstring injury in round 15. Riewoldt booted seven goals and was easily the best on ground but the coach was keen to deflect attention away from individual performances.
“I think Nick played well but I thought our last two weeks have been more like our model of pressure and competing. It’s not just about Nick, to be frank,” he said.
“I thought (Justin) Koschitzke really looked dangerous at times as well.”
