FOR the second time in three weeks, Brisbane was forced to come from behind against Melbourne to surge to victory and secure itself an all-important home preliminary final. The Lions did not have to fight back from as much as their Round 11 deficit, but still trailed by two goals at quarter time without kicking a major.

The Lions piled on six of the next seven goals – and nine of the next 13 – to come away with the 13-point win, 9.2 (56) to 6.7 (43). Coach Craig Starcevich said it was a “great” feeling and that the overwhelming emotion was “relief”.

“You play that oppo two weeks ago and I’m thinking there were about a million things that Mick (Stinear, Melbourne coach) would have had a look at and got their crew ready for,” Starcevich said. “Up against it at quarter time, a couple of blunders by us helped that, but for our crew really, really proud that they were strong enough in the mind to stay in the game and get our game going the way we wanted it looking. That was terrific from our crew.”

A week earlier, Brisbane had 22 scoring shots against Collingwood in a 20-point win, booting 6.16, before turning it around to pile on nine goals from 11 scoring shots against the second placed Dees. In doing so, the Lions booked their sixth straight preliminary final and moved one win away from yet another grand final. Starcevich described the accuracy change as a “fair turnaround”.

“I wouldn’t call it a focus this week, we’ve just got to keep getting the ball into good positions inside your forward 50 to get a good look at the big sticks,” he said. “Sounds simple enough but if you’re playing in the middle of the ground that helps a bit if you’re going forward 50, but also the people who took their set shots nailed their shots as well.

“Ally’s (Ally Anderson) from the forward pocket was a beauty, so if you’re having a good day like that, all that stuff adds up but getting it in there and particularly the small forwards getting to work was particularly important for us.”

Anderson drew some praise from the coach in what was her third game back having played a scrimmage match a fortnight earlier and than being “a bit rusty” returning to the side in Round 12.

“Understandably a little rusty, but today super,” Starcevich said. “She’s a really, really good finals player Ally, her record with us over the last three years in big games has been top of the charts so today she’s just different. “She plays Cam Rayner type footy in that part of the ground which is strength and ‘get out of my way’ type of footy so it’s impressive and its actually its a point of difference to have a player like that.”

The key change to turning the match around after the first quarter was changing the way the Lions excited stoppages, particularly out of the middle. Starcevich said the Dees were “super” at putting pressure on Brisbane early, so the Lions had to “absorb all the punches” and then “started throwing a few ourselves”.

“It was a little bit more around getting the ball out of stoppage and going forward,” he said. “As simple as that sounds, not shaping too much out the stoppage, if you can get a handball forward, you can release that player to bang it in.

“It doesn’t have to be pretty, just take some territory and get it in there. I think we played the game more in our forward 50 in that quarter and that just makes it hard for the oppo to extract it. Getting them on the back foot by going forward out of the stoppage was a big part of it.”