Lions Slump Isn’t Bad Luck, It’s a Warning Sign We Ignored

Look, I’m not going to sit here and pretend this is just a bad trot. The Brisbane Lions are legit scrapping for their finals life right now, and if we’re being honest with ourselves, this slump has been written on the wall for a good twelve months. It’s not bad luck. It’s not just injuries. It’s a bunch of stuff that’s been quietly piling up while we were all busy celebrating flags.

From Dynasty to Danger Zone

Remember when Brisbane in AFLW meant automatic top four, no questions asked? That was the vibe for years. This club built a genuine powerhouse on the back of a rock-solid midfield brigade, a defence that barely let anyone get it inside 50 cleanly, and a forward line that just knew how to find the footy in the right spots. It wasn’t flashy every week but it was relentless.

Now? The Lions are looking at the ladder like the rest of us look at it during a rebuilding year, nervously refreshing to see who else lost. That is such a weird sentence to type about this club but here we are. No notes needed on how uncomfortable that is for Lions fans who got spoiled rotten these past few seasons.

The Warning Signs Were There

If you’ve actually been watching closely rather than just checking the scoreboard, you’d have seen this coming. Brisbane’s contested ball numbers have been trending the wrong way for a while now. Teams have worked out that if you crowd their primary ball-winners and force the footy to their second and third options, the system doesn’t fire the same way. That’s not a hot take, that’s just what’s shown up on the park week after week.

There’s also the experience factor. A lot of the players who were there at the start of this dynasty have either moved on, are managing niggling injuries, or are simply a year or two further into their careers and the legs don’t quite have the same zip. That’s totally normal for any club riding a long run of success, but it catches up with you eventually, and it feels like it’s caught up with Brisbane at the exact same time as a few other things went sideways.

Injuries Have Hurt, But They’re Not the Whole Story

I’m not going to pretend injuries haven’t been a factor because they clearly have. Losing key personel for stretches of the season never helps any side find consistency, and Brisbane has had more than its share of concerning setbacks this campaign. But here’s the thing that bugs me a bit: if a club’s whole structure falls apart the moment two or three players are missing, that tells you something about depth, not just bad timing.

The best teams in this competition, the ones that go deep into September year after year, have systems that survive injury. They’ve got players coming through the pathway who can slot in and hold the line. Brisbane has genuinely been a leader in developing young Queensland talent, which is honestly one of the best things about this club and something I’ll talk up all day long, but there’s a gap right now between the kids coming through and the senior group that’s been carrying the load for years.

Growing the Game in Queensland Cuts Both Ways

Can we talk about this for a sec, because I reckon it’s underrated in this whole conversation. Brisbane has done an incredible job growing AFLW in this state. Crowds are up, junior participation numbers in Queensland have genuinely exploded since this club started winning flags, and that matters so much for where the women’s game goes long term. That’s a massive win regardless of what the ladder says this year.

But success breeds expansion, and expansion sometimes means your best juniors get development opportunities elsewhere, interstate programs come calling, and the pathway that used to funnel straight into this one powerhouse club gets a little more spread out. That’s good for the league overall and I’m not complaining about it as a fan of growing the game, but it probably means Brisbane doesn’t get the same stranglehold on local talent it once did. Every other club in this state is better for the Lions existing, and that was always going to even things up eventually.

What the Club Needs to Actually Fix

Alright, enough context, let’s get into the actual stuff that needs addressing because moping about it doesn’t help anyone.

• The midfield rotation needs fresh legs who can win it at the source, not just run patterns off the back of someone else doing the hard yards.
• Forward line efficiency has to improve. Generating looks inside 50 means nothing if the conversion rate keeps dipping the way it has this year.
• The development pipeline needs to accelerate. Blooding younger players earlier, even in tough periods, builds the depth that saves you when the injury list gets long.
• And honestly, some brutal list management calls are probably coming. Loyalty is lovely but it doesn’t win finals.

None of this is a dig at the playing group, who I reckon are still giving everything they’ve got. It’s more a structural thing that needed addressing a season or two ago and wasn’t, and now it’s showing up at the worst possible time with finals hanging by a thread.

Is This the End of the Dynasty or Just a Speed Bump?

Here’s where I land on it. I don’t think this is Brisbane falling off a cliff forever. The administration at this club has been smart for a long time and I don’t reckon that changes overnight. But I do think the era of just assuming the Lions roll into finals every single year is over, at least for now. Competitions evolve. Other clubs catch up. That’s actually a healthy sign for AFLW as a whole even if it stings watching it happen to your own team.

What Brisbane does from here says everything about whether this slump is a genuine reset or the start of something longer and scarier. You could argue the fanbase needed a reality check after a few years of expecting flags as a baseline. I reckon that’s fair. It’s uncomfortable, but discomfort is usually when the best clubs actually make the hard calls they’ve been avoiding.

So yeah, it’s a rough stretch. It’s been coming. But write this club off at your own risk, because the same smarts that built this dynasty in the first place haven’t gone anywhere. They’ve just got some work to do.