The Lions Reserves departed for Sydney this afternoon just four days after securing their 10th win of the year in a hard-fought contest against Aspley at Coorparoo.

The Lions will now face the Sydney Swans Reserves in a cross-conference blockbuster that will pit the respective ladder-leaders from the Eastern and Northern NEAFL Divisions against each other for the second time this season.

The match, which was initially scheduled to be played as a curtain-raiser to the Friday night AFL blockbuster between the Swans and Carlton at the SCG, has been moved due to the excessive rain in NSW.

The NEAFL clash will now be played at Blacktown International Sports Park this Friday afternoon from 2pm.

“While it’s a bit disappointing that we’re not playing at the SCG, we’re more than happy for the match to be moved to Blacktown,” Reserves Coach Leigh Harding told lions.com.au.

“We know it’s a good surface given we played there only a month ago.”

The last time the Lions (10-1) and Swans (8-3) met was in Round 7 prior to the match between their senior counterparts.

On that occasion, the Swans seemed to have control of the contest at three quarter time, before the Lions piled on seven unanswered goals in the final term to run out 23-point winners.

The Lions will fancy their chances of coming home with the points again considering they’ll boast a near full-strength line-up.

“It’s another big challenge, but we’ve got quite a strong team together and in all the travels we’ve been involved with, we’ve come home with the pints,” Harding said.

“Last time we were a couple goals down at three quarter time and came over the top.”

Stefan Martin is considered an outside to play, while ruckman Billy Longer should return after missing last Sunday’s match.  

Harding doesn’t expect the short turnaround to have a profound effect on his fit and healthy team.

“We experienced something similar for the ANZAC Day game in Mackay, which was a 4-5 day turnaround, and we came up alright for that match,” Harding said.

“Sydney are also coming back from playing in the Northern Territory on Saturday, so that will have taken a bit out of them as well.

“Our training has obviously been modified to give the guys a chance to recover. The reserves boys did an extra touch session on Tuesday with no intensity, and Thursday’s session was just a bit of a run-around.”