Lions coach aims to motivate his AFL side

Four wins from 15 games, can’t make the finals. What’s the point of this again?

Brisbane Lions AFL coach Justin Leppitsch is expecting his players to start asking him that question in the coming weeks as the Lions grind out a season which will offer little reward.

Saturday’s 25-point loss to Richmond at the MCG was Brisbane’s 11th defeat of the year although Leppitsch was pleased that his side’s effort remained strong to the end.

Trailing by 18 points at three-quarter time, Brisbane kicked only one goal in the final term to Richmond’s two but showed plenty of heart.

“There’s a few games when we’ve really dropped our effort in the last quarter when the scoreboard was getting away from us,” Leppitsch said.

“It has been a challenge for us when we’ve been down, so I was happy with that.”

Leppitsch said motivating his players would be challenging during the club’s rebuilding phase.

“I have no idea. We continually try to keep them up,” he said.

“They’ll eventually do their mathematics and realise that we can’t play finals, what are we all doing this for?

“We have to find the reasons why they’re doing that and the bigger picture of what we’re trying to achieve.”

A key aspect of that big picture is finding the next Jonathan Brown after the legendary key forward’s sudden retirement last month.

Leppitsch says he’s happy to leave defender Daniel Merrett in a key forward post.

Merrett failed to score a goal and managed only two kicks against the Tigers.

Teenager Michael Close kicked one goal and was also quiet.

“Daniel Merrett is holding up an important role for us until the next big monster comes through over the years, whenever that is,” Leppitsch said.

“We’re in a development phase of our club.

“I think Daniel Merrett can hold the fort for a few years anyway.”

Leppitsch strongly defended the roles of junior academies in NSW and Queensland.

“If we take away academies, we take away potential growth of AFL players,” he said.

“These academies are dragging players away from basketball like Archie Smith, who’s on our list.

“He could potentially be the next Nic Naitanui.”

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