Brisbane’s loss to Richmond at the MCG last Sunday will only make the Lions better when the teams meet in a qualifying final at the Gabba on September 7.
That’s the view of Lions skipper Dayne Zorko, who says his team has already learned some important lessons from the 27-point loss as they prepare for their first finals campaign since 2009.
“We hadn’t played them for 26-27 rounds so it’s a long time not playing a side,” Zorko said.
“They’ll take a lot out of it, we certainly know we have already. It’s certainly going to make for an interesting clash in a couple of weeks.”
The Lions slipped to their 13th consecutive defeat to the Tigers after a 6.2 (38) to 2.1 (13) first term which they never truly recovered from.
Zorko, who admits he’s still pinching himself as he prepares to lead the Lions in his first finals campaign, said that first quarter was the most disappointing aspect of Sunday’s defeat but the team had shown in the remainder of the game they can match the in-form Tigers.
“On the weekend in that first quarter we started really well but we weren’t able to do it for the majority of that first quarter and that’s where they got on top of us,” he said.
“We sort of played into their hands and gave them exactly what they wanted. We took a lot of learnings out of that.
“After quarter-time I thought we got back to the way we like to play our football and won a lot of key areas that we were really pleased with.
“There’s still a lot of work to do but it certainly gave us great belief.”