Expansion clubs are reaching a crossroads. An 11-player tug-of-war could define them<\/a><\/p>\nBrown is a big fan of the extended 10-team wildcard finals series, which some footy fans have been lukewarm to, given it keeps \u201cthe season open for longer\u201d and maintains engagement with lower sides.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s tipping Nick Daicos to lead Collingwood to one of those wildcard spots and expects the red-hot Blues, who\u2019ve won seven games in a row under caretaker coach Josh Fraser, to also make the top 10.<\/p>\n
More importantly, Brown hopes to see Brisbane emulate what his Lions sides did two decades ago and win a third-straight premiership.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re at the business end of the year now and I\u2019m hoping my boys the might Brisbane Lions, can go the three-peat. They\u2019ve certainly looked good the last fortnight,\u201d Brown said.<\/p>\n
\u201cNick Daicos is amazing. Seeing him and watching him at the ground last weekend, I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve ever seen a player run as hard as he does. It was a sight to behold.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think Carlton and Collingwood will be making it to the wildcard, just to solidify how good the wildcard round is in everyone\u2019s mind. If you\u2019re a doubter, that\u2019ll seal your vote forever.\u201d<\/p>\n
Suns enter bid for Collingwood star | 01:04<\/p>\n
Brown will finally get to personally hand out his meat tray \u2014 supplied by his uncles from Mugavin Beef on a coastal farm in Killarney, Victoria \u2014 after Friday night\u2019s clash. <\/p>\n
Though Brown admits he\u2019s \u2018texted in a couple of times\u201d to give his thoughts on who should take home the meat tray.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s already been won by the likes of Tom Barrass, Jack Ginnivan, Aaron Naughton, Oscar Steene, Jeremy Cameron and Jai Newcombe in 2026.<\/p>\n
So does Brown have his eyes on any players in particular for Friday night\u2019s game?<\/p>\n
\u201cBrayden Maynard probably would have won it the other night, but he\u2019s got to do the same on Friday night,\u201d Brown said. \u201cHe\u2019s probably hoping he doesn\u2019t get whacked in the ribs! <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve done a bit of work with Nick Larkey, so he might just try and get in my ear.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe thing about the meat tray is that it goes to a player that\u2019s earned his tucker on the night. The meat tray is pretty hefty \u2014 it weighs a tonne, and there\u2019s some bloody good meat off my uncle\u2019s farm in there.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt goes to the player that\u2019s not necessarily the best on ground, not the flashiest, it\u2019s the player that earns his tucker.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Browny\u2019s back on Friday night footy! Lions great Jonathan Brown will make his much-anticipated return to Fox Footy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":790812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-790811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790811","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=790811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/790811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/790812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=790811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=790811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=790811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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