DEFENSIVE SKILLS COACH Mitch Hahn says that contested football is going to be the Lions’ main focus in the clash against the Western Bulldogs at Etihad Stadium on Saturday.
“The Bulldogs are a very good team, and I suppose we’ll try and fight fire with fire.
“I think it’s really important for us, contested footy hasn’t been the best this year and we haven’t been consistent, so it’s a real focus for us going into the game,” he said.
“We’ve got some speed down in our forward half with Josh Green, Zorks (Dayne Zorko) and Lewis Taylor, so our pressure around the forward half of the ground is going to be really important for us.”
As for players to watch out for, Hahn said that the Bulldogs are really strong across the board, so it’s going to be a team performance for the Lions this week.
“They’ve got some dangerous forwards in Crameri and Tory Dickson, who’s having a really good year.
“They also have some really strong midfielders, and some really good experience down back with Rob Murphy and some of those guys, like Jordan Roughead who’s playing good footy.”
Match Preview: Bulldogs V Lions
Ever the jokester, Hahn admitted that he and Ben Hudson have been using their insider knowledge to plant a few little thoughts in the opposition’s heads.
“Myself and Ben Hudson were there obviously, but we’ve sent Will Minson a few text messages about what’s going on and messages to Daniel Giansiracusa, trying to get a few little thoughts into their heads, but we’ll see how we go.
Jokes aside, Hahn said that their contested footy is going to be really important this week and hopefully with the return of a few players we’ll see some improvements on the score board.
