Justin Leppitsch said he probably underestimated the impact of not having a practice match following the scrappy NAB Challenge Rd1 win over the Saints at Burpengary on Saturday.
The wild weather that lashed Brisbane last week as a result of cyclone Marcia forced the Lions to cancel their schedule intra-club match with the players forced to complete a swimming and weights session instead.
“We’ve been doing a fair bit of match simulation and we’ll do more of that at training on Monday, not ideal, particularly from a selection perspective, it’s always nice to get that hitout,”
But following the match against the Saints the lack of match practice was evident.
“I thought we were a bit scratchy the whole game, just with some of out setups and things we want.
“I probably under estimated the fact that we didn’t have a practice match to be honest, I thought we looked a little bit on the back foot.”
Whilst there were a number of new faces and combinations for the Lions, Leppitsch was quick to dismiss that as the sole reason for the scratchy performance.
“There is that component of it and there was a lot of fumbling earlier and I think those sorts of things coaches expect at this time of the year.
“But some of the things we can control I think are the things we’ll look at, as far as structures and how we setup and where we setup, why weren’t they filled and little things like that.
“We’ve trained the whole pre-season and done pretty well on the training track but they weren’t quite there today, but it is their first hit out so it is to be expected we were a little sloppy in a few areas.”
The Lions next travel to Coffs Harbour to take on last year’s Grand Finalist the Sydney Swans in Rd2 of the NAB Challenge.
