Star forward duo can’t win flag: Brisbane legend Brown

Alex Mitchell and Murray Wenzel | April 4, 2023

Brisbane champion Jonathan Brown doesn’t believe his former side can challenge for a premiership with Joe Daniher and Eric Hipwood filling their key forward posts.

Daniher and Hipwood have struggled early in the AFL season, combining for seven goals and just three contested marks in the Lions’ 1-2 start.

The pair combined for 64 goals last season as Brisbane reached a preliminary final, Daniher kicking the match-winner in a sudden death clash with Richmond and Hipwood the star with four goals in an upset of Melbourne a week later.

But, ahead of hosting Collingwood on Thursday, Brown has seen enough to declare they can’t be premiership pillars playing as they are.

“Three contested marks between Hipwood and Daniher for the year, that’s a terrible return,” Brown told Fox Footy.

The Lions have lost power forward Dan McStay to Collingwood, with Jack Gunston arriving from Hawthorn in his stead.

Brown, who helped Brisbane to three consecutive premierships in the early 2000s, is in “serious doubt” the incumbent duo would ever reach the level required to win a premiership.

“He (McStay) seemed to be the bullocking, straight-down-the-line type forward that was able to contest and compete,” he said.

“Any key forward needs to be reliable and predictable to his teammates and I’m not seeing (that) in Daniher and Hipwood at the moment.”

The Lions rank 14th in points scored through three games, managing just 72 and 53 in losses while exploding with 83 points in three quarters before a Gabba power outage in their win over the Demons.

But co-captain Lachie Neale said it was too early for panic.

“Round one was just a shocking day, round two we scored pretty well until the lights went out and then last week we didn’t make the most of opportunities,” he told reporters on Tuesday.

“It’s probably not a trend; we know that we can score quite heavily.”

The midfielder was unaware of Brown’s criticism of Daniher.

“Has he copped a bit, has he?” the Brownlow Medallist said.

“I haven’t tuned into too much this week, I know that Joe was probably disappointed with how he performed on the weekend.

“I’m sure he’ll put as much effort in as he can to put in a good one on Thursday.”

Lions defender Daniel Rich (quad) is long odds to return after he trained separately to the main group to begin Tuesday’s session.

Neale also backed Hugh McCluggage to respond after quiet games in both losses, highlighted their rebound defence as a crucial area to improve and talked down the absence of a specialist ruckman for the Magpies.

Mason Cox and Darcy Cameron will both miss, leaving Billy Frampton and McStay to contest the bounce with Brisbane talls Oscar McInerney and Darcy Fort.

Neale pointed to McStay’s ability to plug a gap for the Lions when McInerney was injured in last year’s win over the Tigers.

“It doesn’t mean we’re going to dominate that area of the game, but we’ll have a look at some ways that we can try and exploit it,” he said.