BRISBANE Lions coach Justin Leppitsch has urged his team to ignore ‘the weight’ of their winless start to the season and focus on improving their concentration.
After last week’s competitive performance against reigning premier Hawthorn, the Lions made a strong showing against Geelong at the Gabba on Saturday but a small lapse led to a 25-point defeat.
The Lions finished level with the Cats in contested possession but couldn’t stop a flood of Geelong goals in the third quarter.
It followed a final-quarter burst from the Hawks that snuffed out any hope of a round one upset.
“The important thing the guys need to remember is what we do within games and not worry about the weight of 0-2,” Leppitsch said.
"If you start worrying about that you don’t concentrate on living in the moment.
“We won uncontested possession and matched them in contested possession but in (the third) quarter we lost it by 13 - that makes the difference. The compliance to structure and compete is good.
“If you take out that patch we won. Its an encouraging number against a mature team, but they need to do it over longer distances.
“Mature teams don’t make mistakes when it matters. I said to the boys when you play preliminary final teams you’ve got to go for four quarters.”
Leppitsch was also rueful of a two-minute period near the end of the second quarter when Geelong backed up Taylor Hunt’s goal with two more that came almost direct from the centre bounce. It turned a ten-point lead into a nine-point half-time deficit.
“We gave away two soft goals in the second from individual errors,” Leppitsch said.
“We wanted to make it hard for both teams to score off the stoppage. It wasn’t a structural issue it was two basic errors.
“Jordie Lisle goes to mark rather than spoil and Daniel Merrett loses his man. There can be no minute lapses within games.
“Sometimes it’s reigning it in under pressure. Experienced teams that have been there and done it ride the waves.”
