Brisbane Lions Senior Coach Justin Leppitsch has reaffirmed his commitment to blooding youth, saying "we'll grow from here" as part of a very deliberate plan by the football club.
“When I got this job and I presented for this job, two-and-a-half years ago now, I said to the football club, ‘There are probably about eight to 10 players left on the list’, and that's the case,” Leppitsch told Channel Nine’s Footy Classified on Monday night.
“I've actually put through everything I said to the football club, ‘This will be the youngest year we will have as a football club and we'll grow from there’, and that's the case.
“We are the youngest team in the competition. I've debuted 21 players – that's one (player) every two-and-a-half games … and (we've) played the most amount of games into those kids.”
Leppitsch used the interview to comprehensively outline the long-term plan for the Lions.
“When you sit at the bottom, you sit at the bottom for a reason and most of the time it is because of inexperience or injury.
“I share the bottom of the ladder with the three most experienced coaches in the competition. Yes, often it’s the coaching and what we need to do, but often it’s the time lists needs to develop.
“It’s a long process list management, it doesn’t just happen overnight.
“We’ve had eight retirements since that period. We were always going to get younger and we haven’t filled those for older players, we’ve filled those for younger players.
“It’s a deliberate plan for our football club.”
Despite the Lions succumbing to Richmond by 42 points at the MCG on Saturday, Leppitsch said post-match there were positives to take out of the result. Eric Hipwood in just his second game kicked three-goals and the Lions finished the match with a five-goal final quarter.
“We're going to keep playing these kids, we're going to keep exposing them and they'll get better quicker because of that,” he said.
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