Brisbane Lions ready to turn battle with Bulldogs into scrap to prevent Sam Darcy having a major impact

The Brisbane Lions are well aware of the threat that Western Bulldogs star Sam Darcy will pose on Saturday.

The Lions are planning to get “dirty” in their bid to nullify the potential damage Western Bulldogs star Sam Darcy can cause them on Saturday at Norwood Oval.

However, not filthy in the sense of cheap shots or any other questionable tactic.

Instead, Brisbane intends to dull Darcy’s impact by disrupting the Bulldogs’ supply to their 208cm forward by ensuring the midfield battle becomes a scrap.

“If he gets easy supply, he’s going to be hard to stop,” Lions coach Chris Fagan said of Darcy ahead of the Gather Round battle.

“If we can make that supply a bit slower and a bit dirtier, then that becomes a little bit more difficult for a marking player.

“It’s going be a team effort, not just the match-ups, that’ll matter.”

Fagan said either Jack Payne or co-captain Harris Andrews would have the job of stopping Darcy once the ball got into the Bulldogs’ 50m attacking zone.

Western Bulldogs star Sam Darcy is a big target. Picture: Michael Klein

“They’ve got (Aaron) Naughton and (James) O’Donnell in there as well, so (it’s also about) who matches up well on those players,” the Lions coach said.

“Sometimes we play Harris on the main man, sometimes we don’t, and we’ll let Jack do that. Then Harris plays on somebody else which allows him to zone off a little bit more.

“They’re all the things that you think about when you come into a game like that, but I won’t tell you what we’re going to do.”

However, Fagan was happy to share his admiration for Darcy.

“He’s a fantastic player,’” he said.

“The predictions at the start of the year were that he was going to take off this year, and the predictions were right.”

Fagan also praised the Bulldogs, who have a 50 per cent record after four matches.

“They’ve won two and lost two, but they could easily won the two that they lost, so they’re a really good team,” he said.

“They’ve been a very good team for a long time. They play a really good contested brand (of football). They’re great at stoppages, they move the ball really well … so there’s a lot of things that we have to get right to beat them.”

Lions co-captain Harris Andrews could have the match-up on Darcy. Picture: Josh Chadwick/AFL Photos/via Getty Images

The Lions are chasing a 10th successive AFL win across two seasons, having not lost a competitive match since being pipped by Collingwood by one point in August last year.

“That’s a good run in AFL footy … but I don’t really look at those things,” said Fagan, who added that the Lions were intent on producing a “better four-quarter game” on Saturday.

“We’ve played patches of really good footy. We’re building. It’s just a work in progress. It doesn’t always pay dividends to be playing the best footy in April.”

Premiership-winning Brisbane forward Kai Lohmann will miss a second successive game with an ankle injury, while Fagan said concussion victim Brandon Starcevich was “probably somewhere between six and eight weeks” away from returning.

Originally published as Brisbane Lions ready to turn battle with Bulldogs into scrap to prevent Sam Darcy having a major impact