{"id":527472,"date":"2026-03-08T21:09:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T21:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/527472\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T21:09:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T21:09:12","slug":"monster-blow-for-lions-with-three-key-players-banned","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/527472\/","title":{"rendered":"Monster blow for Lions with THREE key players banned"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"article__summary\">\n                The Match Review Officer&#8217;s findings are in from Saturday&#8217;s games in Opening Round\n            <\/p>\n<p>                                Harris Andrews during Brisbane&#8217;s clash with Essendon in round 12, 2025. Picture: AFL Photos<\/p>\n<p>BRISBANE will be without co-captain Harris Andrews for three weeks, with the star defender one of three players suspended over incidents in the Lions&#8217; tense loss to the Western Bulldogs on Saturday night.<\/p>\n<p>Andrews was suspended over high contact that knocked out Bulldog Arty Jones, while star forward Zac Bailey and tall defender Darcy Gardiner received one-game bans for other incidents.<\/p>\n<p>Brisbane has also confirmed star midfielder Hugh McCluggage will miss at least one week <a href=\"https:\/\/www.afl.com.au\/news\/1473959\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">with scans revealing a minor calf strain on Sunday<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Andrews and Jones had flown for an aerial contest and when the ball hit the deck, the Lions skipper flung back his left arm to block the Bulldog&#8217;s run, but struck Jones in the face.<\/p>\n<p>Jones was immediately treated and taken off with concussion.<\/p>\n<p>The incident was assessed as careless, high contact and severe impact, drawing a three-match suspension.<\/p>\n<p>The loss of Andrews is massive given the Lions face red-hot Sydney and its new spearhead Charlie Curnow next week.<\/p>\n<p>Andrews will also miss games against St Kilda and Collingwood.<\/p>\n<p>Bailey was cited for a third-quarter elbow to the head of Bulldogs debutant Michael Sellwood after the Lions star was tackled over the boundary line by the defender.<\/p>\n<p>It was considered intentional, low impact and high contact.<\/p>\n<p>Gardiner was cited for a high arm to Bulldogs forward Aaron Naughton, conceding a 50m penalty in the fourth term.<\/p>\n<p>That incident was ruled high contact, medium impact and careless conduct.<\/p>\n<p>The Lions are yet to announce if they will challenge any of the suspensions at the Tribunal this week.<\/p>\n<p>Ruck recruit Sam Draper, who has battled foot soreness after recovering from an Achilles tear, is a potential inclusion to face Sydney next Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Hard-nosed defender Noah Answerth also played a practice match in his successful return from the same injury.<\/p>\n<p>Coach Chris Fagan will take comfort from the green on the statistics sheet after the two-time reigning premiers&#8217; Opening Round fumble.<\/p>\n<p>The Lions had withstood the Bulldogs&#8217; best blows, kicking five consecutive majors to lead by 26 points late in the third term on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>But the Bulldogs surged back to win by five points &#8211; 16.15 (111) to 15.16 (106) &#8211; in an enthralling Gabba contest.<\/p>\n<p>Fagan was left with plenty of positives despite the result.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Not alarm bells,&#8221; he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You look at the stats and there&#8217;s so much green here for us.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;That set of statistics is a good set against the Bulldogs.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You take heart from that. They&#8217;re a good team. Just a number of little things.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Match Review Officer&#8217;s findings are in from Saturday&#8217;s games in Opening Round Harris Andrews during Brisbane&#8217;s clash&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":527473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[43,44,83,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-527472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-text","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=527472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/527472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/527473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=527472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=527472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=527472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}