Brisbane determined to deal with Giants after embarrassing early-season loss

The Brisbane Lions will need to be switched on in one area against the GWS Giants if they are to extend their winning run to 10 matches.

Lions wingman Jaspa Fletcher is adamant Brisbane won’t get caught “off-guard” by the GWS Giants for a second time this season in Saturday’s Gabba showdown.

Both teams take hot form into the contest, with the Lions chasing a 10th successive victory and the Giants targeting six wins on the trot.

For the Lions, it’s a turnaround that all but started after they were spanked by 54 points by the Giants in Canberra on April 25.

Since then, Brisbane has lost just once in 13 games to storm into premiership contention.

“Yeah, it’s never great when you lose but to get thumped like that … we were pretty slow that night,” Fletcher said on Friday.
“It’s not great, but for us, it’s probably our turning point of our season. We had a pretty harsh review after that one and started to get going after that, so we’re looking forward to (Saturday).”

The Giants celebrate after their 54-point win over the Lions in April. Picture: Mark Metcalfe/AFL Photos/via Getty Images

Fletcher said defence would be the key to Brisbane gaining revenge on a Giants side that can hurt opponents in the blink of an eye.

“They move the ball quite well and are quite fast too, so they can catch you off-guard,” he said.

“They’ve done it to a lot of teams this year. They did it to us early on in the season, so if they can get that ball movement going, they’re pretty hard to stop, so for us it’s all about our defence.”

Fletcher, 20, admitted his own form had been “up and down” this season but had started to regain confidence.

“I will start to take the game on more,” he said.

“`Fages’ (Brisbane coach Chris Fagan) has been pretty big this year on playing the moments and not really be worried about the score.

“Obviously, early on, we weren’t going too well, so we’re really trying to bring that mantra back of playing every moment and every quarter and not worry about the result.”

Fletcher backed the decision to give forward Eric Hipwood a second week off to manage groin soreness.

“He’s been close with the physios for the past couple of weeks, and with how his body’s feeling, it’s probably the right decision to let his body rest a little bit more and see if we can get him cherry ripe for the end of the season,” he said of Hipwood.

The Lions have made one change to the 23 that thrashed St Kilda by 85 points last Sunday, with defender Darragh Joyce returning from a fractured jaw to replace Bruce Reville, who has a “stress reaction” in his fibula.