The Lions kept pace with Hawthorn until midway through the fourth quarter on Saturday, when a burst of goals took the game away from them in the blink of an eye.

Assistant Coach Danny Daly said while the 48-point loss was unacceptable, Hawthorn’s players’ age and games experience could be attributed to their win.

At 30-years of age, Jordan Lewis was influential in his 250th match for the Hawks – assisted by Cyril Rioli (26 years old) and Shaun Burgoyne (33).

“I want to make one thing clear – this is not an excuse about our performance in any shape or form but what I want to get across is that we’re on the right track with the kids that we’re playing,” Daly told the Vero Coaches Wrap.

“Hawthorn had the second oldest age and games played on the weekend. We were ranked 17th and there was a plus 60 games difference per player from Hawthorn to us.”

(Screenshot from Daly's presentation - Shows average age and game comparison)

Daly encouraged fans to give the Lions’ young side time to develop, and his optimism is not misplaced as the likes of Josh Schache (18 years old), Lewis Taylor (21) and Nick Robertson (20) showed more glimpses of
potential on Saturday.

First-year key forward, Schache, had a game-high eight marks, 13 possessions and kicked two goals, two behinds – which could easily have been four straight.

24-year-old Tom Bell was a second-quarter hero for the Lions, kicking three goals in the space of five minutes. He kicked a fourth in the third quarter, finishing with his equal-career high total.

“A question was asked, why did they over-run us?,” Daly said.

“At the end of the day their experience came through – they were just too strong, we didn’t finish off our work in front of goals as well as we should have, but, we are on the right track.

“It was a great effort against a side that’s won the last three premierships.

“Keep it in mind that we weren’t happy with the last quarter but, we’re very confident moving on towards round 11 against Carlton that we’ll have a great crack at it and a good showing.”

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