Brisbane Lions Captain Tom Rockliff has spoken at length about his confidence in the playing group and the future of the Football Club, in the wake of false allegations about team unrest.
Rockliff, speaking on ABC Radio’s Grandstand program today, said accusations raised on a Thursday night TV program about an alleged “rift” with Dayne Zorko and players in tears after an “honesty session” were “from left field”.
READ: Zorko & Rocky: What Rift?
"At the Club, we deal in fact and I just want to get on the front foot in dealing with this," said Rockliff. “It’s absolutely not true, there is no rift with Dayne and for pure clarity, there has been no-one cry in any session.
"We haven’t even had an honesty session. We’ve had our regular team meetings when we’ve laid a few things out on the table with each other but I’m sure every football club does that.
“The majority of the group, if not all of them, messaged me or talked to me after the accusations went to air to say it’s not true … and they really like the way you go about it so from my end there is nothing to be concerned about.
“As a first-year captain and with us sitting down the bottom of the ladder, to be accused of stuff that you haven’t done, it always makes it hard.
"I’m all for media to report and cover our Club, and if there was an incident and there was friction, then I would completely own up to it, but there’s not and when media outlets run with stories that are blatantly not true, and they know they are not true but they continue to run them, they drag your name through the dirt.”
Rockliff said he had absolute confidence in the playing group and the Club’s culture.
"I can’t be more confident with where the playing group is at. It’s been a tough year with injury but I think we are on the right track,” he said
“I’ve asked the boys for clarity in the past and they are the ones who selected me into the position for those reasons, that I do tell it how it is and there is no beating around the bush.
“That might ruffle a few feathers at times but I always make sure that I follow-up, and we move on from there. The boys have respected that and no-one yet has come to me with any issues about the way I go about things.
“When you’re sitting down the bottom people are always going to have issues … the boys understand that and no doubt we’ll see a bit of player movement in the off season, so there’s always a little bit of uneasiness at this time of year.
“My job as Captain, and my three Vice-Captains around me - Pearce Hanley, Dayne Zorko and Daniel Rich - is to keep the playing group together, and we’ve focused on that in the past month, just controlling what we can control.
“We can’t control what happens externally, outside of the Footy Club, all we can do is go out there and try to play good footy.
"I’ve leant on Browny a little bit .. and Leppa as well, in regard to leadership styles and the way to go about it. It’s all still new to me as a first-year captain and I’m sure I’ll make mistakes along the way but it’s for the main goal which is get the Lions back in the finals and winning premierships.”
Rockliff said members and fans should have confidence in the Club’s direction despite the lack of wins in 2015.
“As a playing group, we have to continue to grow and be better. There is light at the end of the tunnel. It’s important people see the future, someone like Harris Andrews, a first-year who will hopefully be a 250 gamer for us, he has been outstanding this year for us.
"We have a good game plan and we can compete with anyone when we are up and about. We’ve pushed some really good teams this year and we think that we are closer than where we sit on the ladder, but we also understand that we are a young group building something for the future.
“We haven’t got it right in the past, we lost a lot of good talent … so it’s important that we continue to build that environment where they want to stay. If we can all look at ourselves and improve across the board, on and off the field, then we will be on the right track.
“It’s important as Captain that I set the right example from the top and it filters through the Club … it’s important that I lead that from the front, it falls squarely on my shoulders to make sure everyone is jumping on board.”