The battle is on for the dubious honour of being the best AFL team in Queensland on Saturday night when the Gold Coast Suns host the Brisbane Lions at Metricon Stadium.
Both of these teams saw significant changes over the off-season. The Suns lost two star players in Jaeger O’Meara and Dion Prestia to big Victorian clubs.
However, they managed to secure four picks in the top ten of the draft, two of whom will debut tonight – Jack Bowes and Ben Ainsworth.
They also pulled in some talent from other clubs and will hand club debuts to Michael Barlow, Jarrod Witts, Jarryd Lyons and Pearce Hanley.
Brisbane on the other hand didn’t make too many sweeping list changes but did bring in a new senior coach in Chris Fagan and a new football boss in David Noble.
They have one debutant, a former Giant named Jake Barrett who impressed in the pre-season and should get a solid run of opportunity at the Lions.
The Suns are heading in as the heavy favourites in this game, but these clashes have produced a few upsets along the way.
Don’t write off the fact that this is a Brisbane line-up who are going to be more familiar with each other than a Suns team with six new players.
If you reckon the Lions can win then taking them at $3.44 is great value, although it may be worth going for them to win by 1-39 points at $4 if you reckon they’ll get up.
The Suns to win at $1.29 just doesn’t seem like particularly good value given the potential risk for an upset here. It’s difficult to guess what kind of margin they could win by.
The big thing standing in the Lions’ way is Tom J Lynch, who they just don’t really have a defender capable of stopping.
You can get him at $2 to kick four or more goals, $3.20 to kick five and $5 to kick six. Brisbane should improve defensively this year, but regardless, he seems likely to kick a bag.