BRISBANE coach Craig Starcevich has hailed his team's resilience after Saturday's thrilling qualifying final win over Adelaide.
The Lions came out firing but were dominated around the ball in the middle stages of the game, with Starcevich conceding it looked as though the Crows would skip away to a "three- or four-goal win" by the third term.
CROWS v LIONS Full match coverage and stats
Adelaide, willed on by a parochial home crowd, gained an ominous 11-point buffer before goals from Dakota Davidson and Orla O'Dwyer levelled the scores with a quarter to play.
Brisbane's ability to then win out a tense final term was a testament to the team's never-give-up attitude, Starcevich said, as the Lions earned a crucial home preliminary final.
"That's been a strong trait of our group," he said post-match.
"They're proud of each other for hanging in there. We've got a lot of young ones out there, a lot of inexperienced ones out there, they're learning the Brisbane way.
"That's gold to play in a game like that.
"They were all over us early in the third quarter, it was looking like it was going to be a three- or four-goal loss. But they found a way to hang in there and counterattack."
It takes Brisbane's favourable history over the Crows to an 8-3 record, which Starcevich played down, saying his side was vying to "be more like" Adelaide.
The Crows are now forced to take the tough route after squandering a golden opportunity for a home preliminary final.
But coach Matthew Clarke projected calmness post-match, suggesting his side would look to improve its ball use after dominating the midfield battle without the win to show for it.
"A lot of the numbers read pretty well after quarter-time, so then you've just got to take your chances. We didn't," he said.
"Any game under a goal there's a little bit of luck involved, but there's some things we could've done better.
"We had a double chance, we won't have that next week. So we'll have to make sure we're on and manage the disappointment of today really well."
