The Brisbane Lions Reserves pre-season came to a close in Coorparoo on Saturday, with an 18-point loss to the Gold Coast Suns.
Read the match report here.
Please find below Coach Shane Woewodin’s appraisal on each of the listed Lions who played against the Suns.
| Zach O’Brien | Work rate was high – continuing to win the ball at the moment. There is still room for improvement, it’s just his deny work. He’s working hard through stoppages and has been promoted to the senior list, which is a great result. |
| Jackson Paine | Moved Jackson to defence – a very solid game. Looked really good back there and won some one on ones. His contested marking was great, and he continued to work on his starting points as a defender. We moved him back to give him the opportunity to have another role. He worked hard on his ground level. |
| Archie Smith | Archie’s first game back for a couple of weeks – he fatigued as the game wore on. He found the ball a fair few times and his ruck work was OK. We still want him to work harder around the ground and impact more contests. |
| Tom Cutler | Provided some good overlap for us. He’s still working hard on his contested game and defensive efforts. Worked through the game pretty well. Kicking was a fraction down – generally being his strength in the past few weeks. |
| Liam Dawson | Not his greatest game. It was a good learning curve for him. He played higher up the ground on the weekend as a fifth. Needs to work harder on his three quick steps. Tried to push him deeper in the forward line to isolate himself against an opponent. He’ll be better for the run. |
| Billy Evans | Much better from Billy. He worked hard and hit the scoreboard a fair bit. He kicked two goals this week and is working hard on his three quick steps. Billy’s contest stuff is pretty good. He cramped about the second term and didn’t play much game time after that. |
| Darcy Gardiner | Got dropped from the seniors this week. It was good for him to get a full hit out. His shoulder still looks a bit sore at times but he’s getting through it. Solid across the day, probably got stabbed a couple of times but generally; overall he was pretty good on his opponent. |
| Mitch Golby | Mitch was probably one of our best players. He’s been very consistent and pushing for senior selection. His work rate was fantastic and contested game was very good. He showed some great leadership out there. |
| Matt Hammelmann | Still a work in progress for Matt with his marking – missed some opportunities with his technique in that area. He’s working hard on his pattern work and his defensive side of his game. It was good for him to have a full hit out. He cramped probably in the third – needs some education around his hydration. |
| Matt Maguire | Matt wasn’t beaten a helluva lot. He was hard to play against which we want from our senior players. Working some offensive into his game now and he was much better with his organization with fellow defenders. He’s just got to work on his stance and getting his perimeter in order – a generally pretty good, solid hit-out from him. |
| Luke McGuane | We played Luke higher up the ground this week as a high half forward – getting him involved around the ball. We might lose him this week with injury (knee), but, he gaves us some ascendency and a bit more seniority around the pill. Probably hovered a little too much behind the ball rather than equalizing, but it was good to get him up and around the game. |
| Josh McGuinness | Structurally OK, we played Josh on the wing this week and he did that pretty well. There’s still some room for improvement with his positioning, but generally he gives some great overlap with his ability to run and now he has just organized himself probably in more transition with the defensive side of his game. |
| Josh Clayton | Probably the best game he’s played for us since he’s been here with his ability to run which he did really well on the weekend and got rewarded on the back end of it with three goals. He’s still working hard on his contest stuff, particularly at ground level. He certainly took a step forward. |
| Michael Close | Got dropped from the seniors as a big fella. Had a presence for us and organized his fellow forwards really well – took some marks and missed some opportunities. He could’ve finished the game with five or six goals but it was really good to see he focused on the things he wanted to improve on in the ones. Probably could have been rewarded a bit more by holding on to his marks. |
| Harris Andrews | Played as a key forward and ruck. Probably spent too much time on his hands and knees on the weekend – that’s a big area of improvement for him. He just needs to have a bit more presence as a bigger type player, but certainly a learning curve for him this game and hopefully he’ll bounce back in Rd1. |
| Hugh Beasley | Another defender down there – he built his game very well, probably cramped in the last quarter so he couldn’t really finish the game off for us. He provided some good overlap and won his one on ones. He’s been really good in his organization around stoppages as a first year player. |
| Jordon Bourke | Probably his third quarter was his best quarter. He should certainly bottle this intensity. We had a couple of great efforts to spoil and get back on it. He’s still working on his field kicking, which has let him down the last couple of weeks but hopefully a big improvement ready for Rd1. We certainly need his ability to play as a key defender for us against some quality opposition the next couple of weeks. |
| Brent Staker | I thought he improved this week. He spent more time as an inside mid on the weekend, getting him back playing footy again and around the ball. He had 20 touches as an inside mid – worked pretty hard. We probably need to get him spending some time resting deep forward as well to give him some more game time. It’s just good to have him back playing consistent footy at the moment. |
| Josh Watts | A marked improvement for Josh and he is continuing to improve week after week. He’s pretty good offensively for us at the moment. There were a couple of times where he lapsed in concentration on his opponent and they got goals on him but he’s certainly going really well and improving with his week to week performance. |
