IN A difficult season to date, Sam Mayes believes Saturday night's heavy loss to the Sydney Swans gave the Brisbane Lions their harshest lesson yet.
They've been on the wrong end of some bad beatings already (113 points to Port Adelaide in round four, for example), but Mayes says the Lions got a friendly reminder on just what it takes to be a top team from the veteran Swans.
"Every time the Swans want to do something, they do it at 100 per cent," Mayes said.
"When they want to spread and get on the outside, they go flat out. It's something we're not quite doing well enough.
"I reckon that'll be a big thing for us going forward, making sure when we go, we go with serious intent like those sides do."
Mayes copped a first hand lesson from some of the game's hardest workers at the Gabba, as he continued to settle into his new half-back role.
The second year utility played on a multitude of Swans, and like his teammates – seven others with less than Mayes’ 25 games – found it difficult to match the intensity.
"You see the likes of Kieren Jack and Dan Hannebery on the weekend, when they go, they're hard to keep up with because when they go flat out, and they might catch you out by a couple of metres, but that's all good teams need," he said.
"They can make decisions pretty quickly.
"I had the likes of Josh Kennedy, (Jarrad) McVeigh, even Harry Cunningham sliding through half-forward. Everything they do is flat out and it's important to take a bit out of that and implement it in our game."
Mayes said he expected the same from Essendon at the Gabba on Saturday afternoon.
Like the Swans, the Bombers have a number of midfielders that drift through the forward line that Mayes is likely to match strides with.
He said learning the defensive ropes had been a big challenge so early in his career.
"It's been different to having someone defending you. Your sole focus is to beat your opponent one-on-one and get your team's offence going from there," he said.
Twitter: @AFL_mikewhiting https://twitter.com/AFL_mikewhiting
