{"id":380863,"date":"2024-03-31T20:28:44","date_gmt":"2024-03-31T20:28:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=380863"},"modified":"2024-03-31T22:03:01","modified_gmt":"2024-03-31T22:03:01","slug":"lions-icon-rejects-grim-brisbane-flag-suggestion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/?p=380863","title":{"rendered":"Lions icon rejects grim Brisbane flag suggestion"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brisbane Lions<\/a> legend and board member \ufeffLeigh Matthews<\/a> has denied the suggestion the club is falling out of its premiership window amid a dismal start to the season.<\/p>\n

After losing the grand final last year, the Lions have lost their first three matches of this season and sit 14th on the ladder.<\/p>\n

The club has also been dogged by concerns an off-field drama from a pre-season trip is causing division within the playing group<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Since 2019, the Lions have never fallen out of the top eight but are yet to win a grand final.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

That year they finished second but were bundled out of the finals in straight sets. In 2020, the Lions finished second again before losing a preliminary final, while the following year was another straight-sets failure after placing fourth.<\/p>\n

In 2022, the Lions were sixth and lost a preliminary final, while they finished second last year.<\/p>\n

Matthews believes it's "way too early" to suggest the Lions have missed the boat when it comes to winning a flag. \ufeff<\/p>\n

"But it is a bad start to the year, no doubt about that," he said on Nine's Footy Furnace<\/em>.<\/p>\n

"In your win-loss ratio it's a very bad start to the year, but it's not throwing out the baby with the bathwater.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

"Like every team (they have selection dilemmas). Do you play the second ruckman, third tall, or don't you?<\/p>\n

"That's a decision they decided to make that last week, and hadn't done that in the first two weeks, so those kind of decisions are what selection is all about.<\/p>\n

"But again there's no way in the world that you're going to (write them off).<\/p>\n

"(Eric) Hipwood is playing poorly, but you're going to persevere with him because you know he can play well."<\/p>\n

\"Pendlebury<\/p>\n

Having previously suggested the narrative is "false" that off-field drama is affecting the Lions\ufeff on the field, Matthews reiterated that point, stating it's not to his knowledge there's been any impact.<\/p>\n

"I've never had a feeling there's this angst among the playing group or disunity like that," he said.<\/p>\n

"I think everyone I speak to around the club says absolutely no way there's any disunity that has got anything to do with the fact they've lost three games."<\/p>\n

Geelong great Jimmy Bartel<\/a> agreed it's hard to connect the ongoing saga with the Lions' poor start to the season.\ufeff<\/p>\n

"I don't know how it affects ball use and kicking the ball inside forward 50," he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Brisbane Lions legend and board member \ufeffLeigh Matthews has denied the suggestion the club is falling out of its premiership window amid a dismal start […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":380865,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380863"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=380863"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380863\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":380868,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380863\/revisions\/380868"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/380865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=380863"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=380863"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sportinfo.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=380863"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}