WHAT’S GAMBLING REALLY COSTING YOU? Set a deposit limit. For Free and confidential support call 1800 858 858 or visit gamblinghelponline.org.au.<\/p>\n In a crucial fourth-quarter swing, Harry Sheezel missed a crucial set shot from almost directly in front \u2014 which would have made it a four-point game \u2014 before Sam Draper kicked truly two minutes later to make it a 15-point margin. <\/p>\n Brisbane\u2019s third consecutive win came at a cost, though, with Jarrod Berry facing a potential suspension and Dayne Zorko under an injury cloud. <\/p>\n Lions star midfielder Lachie Neale had an equal game-high 30 disposals as Lions key forward Oscar Allen stood tall for the back-to-back reigning premiers with three goals. <\/p>\n \u2014 with NewsWire<\/p>\n THE 3-2-1 (what we learned) …<\/p>\n Fagan weighs-in on Gather Round debate | 06:04<\/p>\n 3. \u2018BUSTED IT OPEN\u2019: LIONS EXPLOSION PROVES DECISIVE<\/p>\n Premiership teams have an innate ability to bury the opposition in short spurts. And the Lions are the best in the competition at it. <\/p>\n They did it against St Kilda and Collingwood in their other two wins this year, and while the Roos weren\u2019t finished off until the final minutes of the game, Brisbane\u2019s dominant third quarter paved the way to victory. <\/p>\n The Lions kicked five goals to North Melbourne\u2019s two to turn a four-point half-time deficit into a 16-point three-quarter-time advantage. <\/p>\n And they built it off of turnover punish and contest wins, brutalising the Kangaroos in transition on multiple occasions to create free-flowing scoring opportunities. <\/p>\n \u201cThe Lions have busted it open,\u201d premiership champ Shaun Burgoyne aptly put it in commentary. <\/p>\n For the third quarter in totality, Brisbane registered 20 inside-50s to North Melbourne\u2019s 11, 10 forward-half intercepts to three, and three goals to none from the defensive half source. <\/p>\n \u201cCertainly it was a flex by the Brisbane Lions, there\u2019s no doubt about that,\u201d Jordan Lewis said at the final break. <\/p>\n Young Roo SOARS in stellar pack mark | 00:31<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a quarter dominated by the Lions \u2026 the ball lived in one half of the ground, they gave themselves repeat opportunities. <\/p>\n \u201cThe way that they set up their defensive structure to allow them to do that was impressive.\u201d<\/p>\n Burgoyne added: \u201cThey get really good defensive stability behind the ball, but also when there\u2019s a stoppage inside their own defensive half, they win that contested ball and they read the cues to get on their bikes and pushing forward \u2026 that starts at the contest, getting dirty and winning that contested footy first.\u201d<\/p>\n And after a tense start to the fourth quarter, conceding two of the term\u2019s first three goals, the Lions got over the top to hold on for their third victory. <\/p>\n Fagan\u2019s men finished with 27 front-half turnovers for 5.6 (36). <\/p>\n \u201cIt was the turnover game; the ability for Brisbane to create turnovers and off the back of that, score,\u201d Lewis said at full-time. <\/p>\n Zac Bailey was at the forefront of Brisbane\u2019s cause in the third term specifically, kicking a goal while three of his five touches were score involvements. <\/p>\n 2. \u2018BEEN AN ISSUE\u2019: FLAW CRUELS ROOS DESPITE EARLY FLEX<\/p>\n Despite at times looking unstoppable at stoppage, the Kangaroos had a few too many all-at-sea moments in defensive transition on Saturday. <\/p>\n North Melbourne started the hungrier side at stoppage, finishing +13 for contested possessions in the first quarter and winning at clearance. <\/p>\n It was +18 for scores from clearances in the first half, flexing their contest muscles against a top-class Lions midfield group. <\/p>\n \u201cThis is an absolute strength; they\u2019re the best team in the competition in this area,\u201d Jordan Lewis said on Fox Footy at half-time. <\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ve gone to work; they\u2019ve come in with an aggressive type of attitude in and around that particular part of the ground. <\/p>\n \u201cThey\u2019ve targeted certain players, which means that they\u2019ve played on edge \u2026 that would be really pleasing.\u201d<\/p>\n However, in the third quarter in particular, there were too many times where the Kangaroos lost their defensive shape when the Lions looked to punish on turnover or after winning at stoppage. <\/p>\n \u201cThis has been an issue; there\u2019s been so much time and space in the middle of the ground for Brisbane to be able to transition,\u201d Lewis said late in the third quarter. <\/p>\n \u201cThat has forced them to make a few errors in defence, when to come up and when to hang back \u2014 their cascading defence hasn\u2019t been in sync, which has allowed the Lions to transition the ball with a level of ease.\u201d<\/p>\n Leigh Montagna added: \u201cThree of those goals from defensive 50. North Melbourne really with nobody to blame but themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n The Roos wouldn\u2019t go down easily in what was a valiant effort overall, kicking two of the first three goals in the final term. But a decisive swing saw a Harry Sheezel missed set shot \u2014 which would have got the Roos to within four points \u2014 become a Sam Draper goal to instead make it an unrecoverable 15-point buffer.<\/p>\n 1. LION\u2019S \u2018CRUDE\u2019 ACT TO COME UNDER MRO SCRUTINY<\/p>\n Integral Brisbane midfielder Jarrod Berry is set to come under Match Review scrutiny after what was described as a \u201ccrude hit\u201d on North Melbourne\u2019s Dylan Stephens. <\/p>\n In the second quarter, Berry arrived late to a marking contest on the wing involving Stephens, who marked before getting clobbered by Berry\u2019s swinging arm. <\/p>\n Fortunately, the Kangaroos wingman was able to bounce back up and take his kick, with the umpire paying a free kick but not a 50-metre penalty. <\/p>\n At face value, it appeared as though it was a late spoiling attempt by the Lion. But after multiple replays, questions will be asked over whether there was intent behind Berry\u2019s act. <\/p>\n \u201cThat was a crude hit from Berry \u2014 thankfully Stephens gets to his feet,\u201d Fox Footy caller Leigh Montagna said in reaction. <\/p>\n \u201cThat will be certainly looked at, you\u2019d think, from the MRO.\u201d<\/p>\n At half-time, the panel revisited the incident, with Jordan Lewis saying: \u201cI think any time a player gets hit in the head, whether it be from a bump or in this case a swinging arm \u2026 it will certainly get looked at. <\/p>\n ‘You’re not gonna beat Brisbane’ | 07:26<\/p>\n \u201cI think he might be lucky that Stephens was able to get up and continued to play, which certainly comes into calculations.\u201d<\/p>\n A theoretical grading of careless conduct, medium impact and high contact would result in a one-match suspension. Alternatively, an intentional, low and high grading would still see a one-game ban dealt Berry\u2019s way. <\/p>\n Brisbane clashes with Melbourne next week at the MCG. <\/p>\n Meanwhile, Dayne Zorko is under an injury cloud after hurting his calf in the first half of the game. <\/p>\n Zorko was ruled out before half-time as the Lions took utmost caution with the 37-year-old, with doubts now over his availability next weekend. <\/p>\n Follow North Melbourne vs. Brisbane in our live blog below!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brisbane has survived a spirited North Melbourne outfit at Barossa Park on Saturday afternoon, prevailing 13.14 (92) to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":600974,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,689,55,639,7491,3237,290911,88951,2105,12804,3231,6462,25546,142568,647,7204,677,52765,85,60133,292905,2801,660],"class_list":{"0":"post-600973","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-afl","8":"tag-afl","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-australia-and-new-zealand","12":"tag-australian-football-league","13":"tag-australianfootballleague","14":"tag-ben-dixon","15":"tag-brisbane-lions","16":"tag-coaches-wages","17":"tag-dayne-zorko","18":"tag-getty-images-inc","19":"tag-hobart","20":"tag-jack-jovanovski","21":"tag-live-updates","22":"tag-luke-davies-uniacke","23":"tag-match-details","24":"tag-melbourne","25":"tag-north-melbourne-kangaroos","26":"tag-oceania","27":"tag-reigning-premiers","28":"tag-sports","29":"tag-steve-bell","30":"tag-super-gather","31":"tag-tasmania","32":"tag-victoria"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600973","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=600973"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/600973\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/600974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=600973"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=600973"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=600973"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/poster-fallback.png\"\/)
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