Lions Trim The Fat But Keep Their Eyes On The Prize

Reigning premiers don’t get to just sit back and admire the cup forever, and the Lions proved that this week with four changes to the primary list heading into 2027. Two delistings, and a public pledge to get a pair of contracted-adjacent names back in the building — classic September-to-October footy business, and honestly it’s the kind of unglamorous stuff that keeps a dynasty actually being a dynasty.

The cold reality of flag defence

Look, I get it, nobody wants to talk list cuts the same winter we’re still replaying the premiership highlights in our heads. But this is literally how it works. You win it all, and about five minutes later the exec and the list management team are back in the building asking the hard questions about who’s still part of the next three years. Brisbane haven’t been shy about this under Justin Leppitsch and the recruiting crew — they’ve built a list with actual depth, which means even good clubmen can find themselves squeezed out when the kids coming through are legit knocking on the door.

It stings in the moment, no notes needed on that, delistings always do. But a club that just broke a flag drought isn’t rebuilding anything — they’re refining. There’s a big difference between the two, and fans need to hold onto that when the names start filtering through.

Who’s been let go

The Lions confirmed two players have been delisted as part of the primary list reshuffle for next season. Out of respect to blokes who’ve given their body to the cause, I’m not going to turn this into a pile-on — delistment doesn’t mean a player can’t still find a home somewhere else on the competition, and plenty of guys have gone on to have second lives at other clubs after getting squeezed out of a flag-winning list. That’s just how the modern draft-and-development cycle rolls.

What it does tell you is that Brisbane’s list is stacked enough that fringe depth players are genuinely under pressure every single off-season. That’s a nice problem to have when you’re the ones holding the cup, even if it’s a tough one for the individuals copping the call.

The pledge to keep the pair

The bit that’s actually got my footy brain buzzing is the club’s public commitment to re-signing two players they clearly see as non-negotiable parts of the premiership puzzle going forward. When a reigning premiership club comes out and says publicly, in black and white, that they’re prioritising getting a deal done — that’s the club putting its money where its mouth is. It’s not just internal chatter anymore, it’s a statement of intent to the rest of the competition.

It also sends a message to the playing group. When you watch team-mates get told the club is fighting for them, that builds culture. That’s the stuff that doesn’t show up in the stat sheet but absolutely shows up in September when everyone’s gassed and someone needs to put their head over the ball one more time.

Why list management actually matters this much

There’s this lazy take that floats around footy media every year that reckons list management is just admin, boring back-office stuff compared to the real footy on a Saturday arvo. Hard disagree. The clubs that stay at the top for multiple years — and Brisbane are clearly trying to build that kind of empire right now — are the ones who get the boring stuff right every single off-season. Knowing when to cut loose a developing player who’s plateaued, knowing which free agent or contracted name is actually a priority versus a nice-to-have, that’s the difference between a premiership window that’s open for one year and one that’s open for five.

We’ve watched other flag winners around the competition get complacent on this front and pay for it two or three years down the track. Say what you want about the Lions front office, but they don’t seem interested in letting that happen on their watch.

The Queensland growth angle people keep forgetting

Can we also just sit with this for a sec — every single list decision the Lions make right now has flow-on effects for footy in this state that go way beyond just the senior list. Queensland kids are watching this club more closely than ever after the flag, and a lot of them are choosing footy over other sports partly because Brisbane looks like a destination club now, not a punching bag like the dark days of the early 2010s. Every contract decision, every delisting, every re-signing pledge is part of a bigger story about whether the game actually takes root up here for good.

That’s not me being precious about it either — it’s just the reality of growing the code in a non-traditional state. The AFLW program up here has been doing similarly important groundwork for a few years now, building genuine pathways for young Queensland women that frankly didn’t exist a decade ago, and the men’s premiership only turbo-charges that whole project. List stability at the top end makes all of it easier to sell to the next generation of recruits.

What fans should actually watch for next

• Confirmation of the re-signing pledge actually getting over the line on paper, not just in a press release
• Whether either delisted player gets picked up elsewhere in the draft or rookie process
• How the list changes affect depth at both ends of the ground heading into pre-season
• Any further primary list tweaks before the deadline, because four changes rarely means the club is finished for the window

None of this is the sexy stuff of trade period rumours or big-name free agency swings, but it’s the actual substance of how a premiership club protects what it built. The Lions faithful should be watching this stuff just as closely as they watch the draft order or the fixture release, because this is where premierships get defended or quietly lost.

The bottom line

Brisbane didn’t win a flag by accident, and they’re not going to defend it by accident either. Two delistings is tough on the individuals involved, full stop, but it’s also proof the list is deep and competitive. The public pledge to re-sign the other pair is the real headline here though — it’s the club telling the competition, and telling its own fanbase, that the premiership window is still wide open and they’re not messing around with the pieces that got them there. As a Lions supporter I’m choosing to read this as exactly what it looks like: a flag-winning club doing flag-winning club things.