When the Brisbane Lions claimed their first pre-season premiership in the Club’s merged history earlier this year, fans had reason to approach the 2013 home-and-away season with a sense of optimism.

After all, the Lions had just comfortably accounted for flag fancies Collingwood and Carlton in consecutive weeks away from home to secure the NAB Cup.

But football is an unpredictable game, and despite heading into Round One as warm favourites, the Lions simply were switched on against a determined Western Bulldogs outfit.

The subsequent 11-goal hiding proved a rude awakening for the Lions, who now sit with just three wins from their first 10 matches as they head into the Bye.

Development Coach Gary O’Donnell believes the Club’s forgettable season opener could have caused a ripple effect on the team’s performances throughout the first half of the season.   

“The first game of the season against the Western Bulldogs probably derailed us,” O’Donnell told Michael Whiting and Dom Fay during an extended mid-season Fancast interview.

“(During the NAB Cup) we were playing a high standard of footy. We were cracking in and our efforts and pressure on the opposition was at a high level.

“We’d been so good, and probably had the rug pulled out from under us (in Round One).

“Footy bites you pretty quickly if you don’t respect the opposition, and maybe as a group we went into Round One thinking we’d be going pretty well so should be right this week.

“You get what you deserve in this game, and history says we had a really bad loss. It took a while for the players to recover from that I reckon.

“I think if we had won in Round One, we might have snatched Round Two against Adelaide and then, all of a sudden, your season is a whole lot different.

The Lions have had a chance to reflect on their disappointing first half of the season this week leading into the Bye.

“We have to assess why that happened, and I guess the Bye is a good chance to do that – and also to assess at how we’re going to get better at starting games,” O’Donnell said.

“That’s been our key weakness I suppose, and the games we have started well – like the Essendon game – we have generally carried through the game. Whereas in the Kangaroos game, the Bulldogs game and Collingwood more recently, we’ve been slow starters and it means you’re chasing your tail.

“We have to rectify that and if we do, I can see us having a better second half of the year.”