BRISBANE LIONS 11.21 (87) d ESSENDON 10.7 (67)

KEY POINTS

BAD KICKING HURTS LIONS
The Lions have battled issues in front of goal for weeks. It cost them against the Magpies and the Giants, and going all the way back to round one, against Carlton, when they blew a 46-point lead. Essendon weren’t good enough to make them pay at the Gabba, but the Lions’ accuracy didn’t improve: on top of the 21 behinds there were a couple more shots blown clear out of bounds, and many of the misses were pretty elementary, particularly in a game marked by a lack of ground-ball pressure. Going into the last quarter with another 46-point lead, their wastefulness caused more than a few anxious moments as the Bombers kicked the last five goals of the game. The Lions are going to face better and much more desperate opposition in the finals. If they’re to progress past the first week, they’re going to need to be a whole lot better than they were tonight.

HEPPELL GOES OUT WITH A BANG
The Bombers put on a send-off for their former skipper Dyson Heppell tonight. Thanks Hepp, read the banner, and the T-shirts. There was the obligatory chair-lift off the ground. A 253-game career marked by extreme loyalty, through Essendon’s darkest days during the drugs crisis, has come to an end. He has been a fine servant of his football club, winning a Crichton Medal and All-Australian selection in 2014 and captaining the side from 2017 to 2022. He deserved more: more than the paltry two finals he played in, both of them lost; more from some of his teammates on this night, who for three quarters looked like they were already looking forward to Mad Monday. And, perhaps more from his coach: while he got to wave goodbye to his home crowd last week, that’s not the same as playing, and he was better than most in red and black running around at the Gabba. He finished with 34 possessions.

DON’T RULE NEALE OUT OF BROWNLOW
Lachie Neale has faded slightly from Brownlow calculations in recent weeks, but it would be rash to discount the two-time winner on the night. He surely wrapped up another three votes here, with 40 possessions, a goal, two direct assists and seven clearances. He should be at least in the frame, and possibly on the dais, with any of Nick Daicos, Patrick Cripps and Marcus Bontempelli. For such a decorated player, he can almost fly under the radar these days. But he’s the heartbeat of this Lions team, a perfectionist, and by far their best player. Equally, Essendon will point to Zach Merrett, who continued to set a superb standard for his team as others fell away around him. Again, he led from the front at the Gabba. It’s time his teammates followed. A long, hard summer looms at Windy Hill, with another season that showed early promise going up the spout.

KEY STATS