Brisbane coach Chris Fagan insists one other painful MCG defeat will not hinder the Lions’ premiership prospects in September.
After main by 27 factors early within the ultimate quarter, the Lions had been mown down by Melbourne on Friday evening as Jake Melksham slotted the successful objective for the Demons with 30 seconds remaining within the thrilling 16.9 (105) to 16.8 (104) victory.
Brisbane dominated the second and third phrases, booting 12.4 to six.2, however had been made to pay for poor opening and fourth quarters.
It leaves the Lions with only one win from their previous 15 journeys to the MCG, with the solitary victory there coming in final yr’s semi-final in opposition to Melbourne.
But the Lions had been then thrashed by Geelong within the preliminary ultimate on the similar venue seven days later.
Brisbane’s final home-and-away triumph on the MCG got here again in spherical 21, 2014, with Dayne Zorko the one present participant to function in that match.
The Lions had been upset by rebuilding Hawthorn in spherical 13 of their solely different match on the house of the grand ultimate through the home-and-away season.
Fagan was left dissatisfied by the missed alternative however believed they may nonetheless salute on the MCG in finals.
“Probably the hoodoo leaves on,” Fagan mentioned.
“Unfortunately, it wasn’t that far away from not living on, but it does.
“So we simply should take that suggestions and we’ll try to do a greater job the subsequent time that we play right here.
“I’m not a great believer that what happens (against Melbourne), if we’re good enough to get the finals and we have to play here again, that it’s going to be on our mind. I think we can deal with that.
“We had been shut tonight. It’s about as shut as you may get however we did not fairly get there.”
Brisbane lost both home-and-away matches at the MCG last season, before stunning the Demons at the same ground in the second week of the finals.
Their loss against Richmond in round 20 had eerie similarities to this defeat to Melbourne.
Against the Tigers last year, they led by as much as 42 points, but were run over and lost a thriller.
Fagan said he would need to watch the replay to see what more the Lions could have done to stop Melbourne’s late momentum.
“It’s exhausting to cop as a result of we did rather a lot proper, however on the finish of the day I’d say we did not need to win, essentially,” Fagan mentioned.
“We’ll take learnings from it and we’ll go and take a look on the final 5 minutes and the way we dealt with that.
“Melbourne are a good footy side and when you play them here, you’ve got to do a lot of things right to win.”
The Lions will seemingly regain star midfielder Josh Dunkley (calf) for subsequent Saturday’s crunch conflict with Geelong on the Gabba.
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
