Brisbane’s Jarrod Berry has revealed the AFL membership’s mindset shift from hunter to hunted as they put together for each rival’s greatest.
The Lions have completed second, second, fourth and sixth in current seasons, bettering a disappointing September report in 2022 with a run to the preliminary remaining.
Berry believes that consistency, coupled with an attention grabbing low season of recruitment and drafting, has firmly landed them within the sights of fellow contenders.
“I guess we’re probably a scalp for a lot of teams at the moment,” he mentioned.
“We were like that a few years back when we weren’t doing too well and we were always getting up for games and trying to take scalps.”
Brisbane are 2-2 after a testing opening month, bouncing again from losses to a fired-up Port Adelaide and Western Bulldogs with wins over the credentialed Melbourne and Collingwood.
“We’re the hunted now, we’re not hunting,” Berry mentioned.
“We spoke about that a lot in our meetings and have spoken about changing our mindset to being the hunters, so that’s what you can expect for the rest of the year.”
Berry was thrilled for teammates Eric Hipwood and Joe Daniher countering midweek criticism with key roles of their defeat of the Magpies.
“I think our boys that were under a bit of pressure fired, and that’s awesome, that’s what we want to see,” he mentioned.
“I don’t know how much they read into it, but you just love seeing your teammates succeed, especially when they’re under pressure like that.”
Coach Chris Fagan felt that criticism was unwarranted.
“I wasn’t disturbed by last week’s performance at all,” he mentioned after their win over Collingwood.
“I feel like everyone thinks we’re going to go out there and win every week.
“It’s not the way it works within the AFL; it is a arduous, robust, competitors and it’s a must to earn each single win.”
Brisbane loved large crowds of their earlier two Gabba clashes however will go off-Broadway for this week’s Gather Round within the Adelaide Hills, towards North Melbourne in Mt Barker on Saturday.
Source: www.perthnow.com.au
