Join now and get your first month for just $1.<\/a><\/p>\nSpeaking to foxfooty.com.au, Lester could only laugh as he broke his goal drought that dates back to 2023.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy son\u2019s been asking me to kick a goal \u2013 I always call him before I get to the game,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe always says \u2018Are you going to kick a goal today?\u2019 I say, \u2018yeah, yeah I\u2019m kicking a goal\u2019. He may have still been awake as it was in the first quarter \u2026 very rare for me!<\/p>\n
\u201cI think my last goal was in 2023. He\u2019s only four so he won\u2019t remember that one I don\u2019t reckon.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe did have lots of celebration requests \u2013 but not my personality. He might be a bit disappointed with that.\u201d<\/p>\n
After describing the win as \u201ca big relief\u201d, coach Chris Fagan was full of praise for Lester and his side to grab the win away from home.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was inspirational what he did in the goal square and so happy for him to kick his goal,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s a guy that\u2019s gotten better with age really.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no doubt last week against Sydney we really missed him and Brandon Starcevich in our backline.<\/p>\n
\u201cI must admit I was sitting in my hotel room today thinking if we lose tonight and we lose next week, we could miss finals having 14 wins and a draw. Like, that\u2019s unheard of.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think this is our seventh year in a row that we\u2019ve qualified for finals \u2013 that\u2019s hard to do, particularly if you\u2019re an interstate club I reckon, because you\u2019ve got to travel more and there\u2019s a few more obstacles as you would appreciate over here.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are in control of our own destiny \u2026 I think we should just travel somewhere and play next week to be honest (joking about his side\u2019s impressive away record).\u201d<\/p>\n
Lester said knowing finals was now locked in, the pressure had come off the Lions.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously a bit of pressure on us after losing to Sydney \u2013 you fall into the pack a little bit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou ride the ups and downs. I guess the only thing for us is we know we\u2019ve been there before \u2013 our best is good enough.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a matter of turning up and doing that.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re confident we can do it \u2026 but when you do lose like last week, you do have the doubt in your mind. <\/p>\n
\u201cGold Coast flogged us a few weeks ago \u2026 that was probably the one where it was like, all right, if we don\u2019t bring our effort we get caught out big time \u2013 the competition is so even.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s hard to back up (after a premiership) so in that part it\u2019s very pleasing,\u201d he said of making finals again.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll you can do is give yourself a chance every year \u2013 and that\u2019s what we\u2019ve done this year.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast year we hit fire at the right time \u2013 that\u2019s what we\u2019re trying to do this year.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Lions moved into the top two off the back of the win over Fremantle \u2013 but could slip down depending on the rest of the round results.<\/p>\n
They\u2019ll face Hawthorn next week knowing a win could secure a top four shot \u2013 if other results go their way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brisbane star Ryan Lester is simply \u201cgetting better with age\u201d, winning praise for both his goal-saving heroics at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70645,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,2347,63,689,55,639,20781,3237,9203,55626,3244,26517,55619,10124,2105,55625,55624,55622,2485,46632,10991,55621,673,677,46,701,19078,85,670,55620,3439,55623],"class_list":["post-70644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-august","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-brandon-starcevich","tag-brisbane-lions","tag-catherine-healey","tag-celebration-requests","tag-chris-fagan","tag-daniel-carson","tag-drought-breaking-goal","tag-fremantle-dockers","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-goal-drought","tag-goal-tribute","tag-goal-saving-heroics","tag-gold-coast","tag-hotel-room","tag-josh-treacy","tag-kicks-goal","tag-new-south-wales","tag-oceania","tag-perth","tag-queensland","tag-ryan-lester","tag-sports","tag-sydney","tag-ups-and-downs","tag-western-australia","tag-winning-praise"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70644","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=70644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}