Lions best placed but Fagan wary in tight finals race

Brisbane Lions coach Chris Fagan admits he has never watched AFL results so closely.

His premiership favorites sit second on the ladder, riding a nine-match winning streak, but are locked in the tightest race for final spots in memory.

The Lions could rise to top spot with a win over GWS this week, depending on other results, but could also drop as low as fifth with a loss.

Fall away over the remaining three rounds and they could still miss the finals altogether.

“It’s that sort of ladder, isn’t it? You can tumble,” Fagan said.

“We’ve got a big game against the Giants this week and they gave us a beating in Canberra in round seven.

“We play them at home and it’s going to be a big game.

“It will decide a lot about where we and they might finish on the ladder, so it’s going to be a high-stakes game that we’re all looking forward to.”

After an agonizing four-point grand final defeat to Collingwood last year, Brisbane slumped to a 2-5 start in April as a series of devastating knee injuries struck down key players.

It forced Fagan to shuffle his magnets, but the 63-year-old always felt he had something to work with.

“If you had’ve told me when we were 2-5 that with three weeks to go we’d be in the hunt to finish in the top two, I probably would’ve laughed at that suggestion,” Fagan said.

“We were in a spot of bother on the ladder, but we weren’t internally though.

“We knew that we were actually going a bit better than what the win-loss suggested.

“To the credit of the group and everyone around the footy club, we just stayed tuned in to what we needed to do and things have turned around.”

In the tightest of seasons, Brisbane have been able to build consistency like no other side through the back half of the campaign.

They are on the verge of matching ladder leader Sydney’s season-best 10-match winning streak, which the Swans built from April to June before hitting the skids.

“It’s been very much a week-by-week sort of effort,” Fagan said.

“We haven’t talked about finals or anything and I’m still not really talking about finals.

“We just try to win each game that we get and hopefully in a few weeks time when the home-and-away is finished we’re in a good spot.”

A dozen teams are left in the hunt.

Melbourne are hanging on by their fingernails, Essendon and Collingwood have breathed life back into their seasons, and Hawthorn are still in contention despite their hot streak being halted by GWS last week.

After looking almost invincible mid-year, Sydney’s flag credentials are under the spotlight with a run of five losses in six weeks compounded by a record thrashing from Port Adelaide.

The Power are on the rise, as are Brisbane and the Western Bulldogs, while GWS, Geelong, Fremantle and Carlton are right in the mix.

St Kilda coach Ross Lyon – a three-time beaten grand finalist and two-time minor premier – has no doubt about the pecking order.

Lyon nominated Brisbane as the team to beat, after his team was handed an 85-point thrashing by the rampant Lions.

“They were too good for us. We see them as the best team in the comp at the minute,” Lyon said.

“We got feedback to what that level actually feels like against you; the cleanness, the problem-solving, the toughness.”