Brisbane coach Chris Fagan isn’t sure if his side can go back-to-back without star co-captain Lachie Neale.
Neale suffered a calf injury late in the Lions’ 38-point qualifying final loss to Geelong at the MCG, which means the reigning premiers will need to go the long route to win consecutive flags after going into September as one of the favourites.
And it suddenly appears Brisbane will be without the dual Brownlow Medal winner, who’d only just returned from a month on the sidelines with a quad issue, for the remainder of the finals as Fagan braces for bad news while they await the results of scans.
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“It looks like he’s done a calf. That’s not a good thing,” Fagan told reporters post-match.
“He’s a pretty tough sort of guy, he can usually play through those. But he couldn’t, so I’m not expecting great news there.
“He’s pretty tough and he would try to keep going. But in the end he couldn’t.
“It takes a lot for him to come off, so I suspect it’s something significant.”
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The Lions will host a home semi-final against either Fremantle or Gold Coast next week to qualify for an MCG preliminary final against Collingwood.
In addition to Neale’s looming absence, Fagan conceded his side’s mounting injury toll, which includes Eric Hipwood, Jack Payne, Keidean Coleman and Noah Answerth, was suddenly posing a challenge in the club’s quest to defend its flag.
“I haven’t even thought about, I’m just worried about trying to win a game next week,” the Lions coach said when asked if his side could win the premiership without Neale.
“I’ll probably stay neutral on the answer to that question, I don’t know.
“(Neale is) a great player, so obviously he helps, and we’ve got quite a few other guys injured at the moment as well. Whether that adds up to too many injuries and makes it difficult, I’m not sure. But we’ll continue to play with spirit and continue to go at the game and we’ll get out there next week and try and deliver a better performance than tonight.
“Give a lot of credit tonight to Geelong, they were magnificent. I imagine their coach would be incredibly proud of the way they played. I know I would be if I was him.
“They just played a great all-round game and their determination and pressure was as good as I’ve seen.
“It’s a hard thing to win a premiership, so it’s not even worth talking about that. We’ll just knuckle down and come out and give a better performance next week than we gave tonight.”
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Fagan said the Cats “just looked sharper” and were simply “much better than us” in a game Brisbane never led as it was comprehensively beaten on the night. The Lions coach admitted they were “fortunate” Geelong wasn’t more efficient in front of goal than its 16.16 conversion.
And the 2024 premiership boss thinks it will “sting” his star midfield and wider side getting beaten so badly in the contest, despite winning “plenty” of the ball.
“The numbers looked alright … but I thought we overused handball and we turned the ball over by hand a lot,” Fagan said.
“I think at half-time from eight handball, turnovers they scored six goals. A combination of things there.”
The Lions are no strangers to adversity including winning last year’s flag from outside the top four.
Fagan said there “won’t be an overreaction to tonight” as his team looks to respond next week back at its Gabba fortress against the winner of Saturday’s Dockers-Suns knockout final.
“We’ll just do what we always do,” he said.
“Have a look at the vision and find out where we made errors and how we can improve for next week, it will be as simple as that.
“I’ve got a lot of faith in this group. We can make a drama out of it, but they’ve been in the last seven finals series and done some pretty good work in that time.
“It’s not always going to be a bed of roses, every now and then you’re going to meet an opponent like we did tonight who were red hot. So we’ll just stay and calm and do what we always do.”
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The Brisbane coach said he’d “have to watch back” the controversial sequence just before half-time when Cam Rayner was gifted two goals from a double free kick to keep the Lions in the game after Geelong looked like breaking away.
“The Geelong crowd weren’t too happy with it,” he added.
“I haven’t watched the replay, so it would be unfair for me to make any comment on it. Obviously the umpire saw something and doubled up.
“That probably helped flatter the scoreboard a bit for us because Geelong was by a mile the better team tonight.”
Fagan had “no issue” with Rayner’s antagonistic behaviour afterwards in embracing the role of the villain.
It included Rayner giving it to the Geelong cheersquad after kicking a third goal as the star forward was mercilessly booed by Cats fans for the remainder of the night.
“I don’t mind that, it was a hostile crowd. There was a lot of Geelong supporters here tonight,” Fagan said.
“That would’ve been Cam’s way of trying to bring a bit of energy to the team. I had no issue with that.”