Luke Hodge remains confident in young Brisbane side

The Lions came crashing back to earth on Saturday night, but will it impact their confidence? A Brisbane veteran with a mountain of finals experience doesn’t think so. And he saw enough positives to suggest there’s still hope.

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Twenty-four finals games gives you a bit of perspective.

Veteran Luke Hodge says there is no reason for Brisbane’s confidence to be shattered by their 47-point loss to Richmond.

He saw enough from his teammates in his first final as a Lion to declare it wasn’t over yet.

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He was even able to enjoy a personal thrill playing deep in defence against match winner Dustin Martin and handing the superstar a rare loss in a one-on-one marking contest.

Hodge had been made aware by friends of a claim from a commentator during the round 23 clash with Richmond that being opposed to Martin inside the Tigers’ attacking 50m was the last place he’d want to find himself — something he passed on to the Brownlow and Norm Smith medallist.

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“I did mention that to him,’’ he said.

“But that’s the thing when you get down there, you play what comes at you.

“I am going to finish my career saying I was lucky enough to play on Dusty and he’s probably beaten me nine out of ten times.

“And I know the next time the ball came down there I lost it in the lights and it went through my legs.

“But I’ll happily take one.’’

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Luke Hodge is confident the Lions will bounce back in September.

In what would seem to be a nightmare scenario for most 34-year-olds Hodge found himself opposed to Martin, Jack Riewoldt, Tom Lynch and Daniel Rioli at times and he considered it a privilege.

“It is a good thrill to play on some of the better players until you get in a foot race with them and they leave you in the dust,’’ he said.

Hodge said when dissecting the loss the first thing the Lions would look at was the attitude of the players.

He was adamant the blame would not be directed at the poor goal kicking.

“It is more about the attitude of the guys and for a big final like that I thought they handled it quite well,’’ he said.

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“People will probably look at that comment and say, they lost by 50 points.

“But what my experience is, is it’s not so much the scoreboard but how the boys felt during it, how they reacted to a team that pressured them really and how they bounce back.

“And when I look around I see a lot of guys are supportive, they are patting each other on the back, there is no finger pointing and what that shows to me at this stage is the boys are focused and ready to move on.’’

He said the review would then ask did they perform well enough in the key areas of the game to bounce back.

“Yes we’ve lost a final and the score wasn’t close but it felt like the game was a lot closer than the game at the MCG a couple of weeks ago,’’ he said.

“We had more scoring shots, contested possessions were higher than what theirs was.”