Lions’ trade plans as Roo hunt begins

Brisbane coach Craig Starcevich says the Lions will be driven by closing the gap on North Melbourne next season as he praised the premiers for playing “the best footy I’ve ever seen”.

The inaugural Lions coach was proud of his side for making it back to the decider for the sixth time in nine seasons, but conceded it would be a “long, hard road” to return as the competition had become noticeably more even in 2024.

Starcevich will enter the 10th and final year of his contract next season, and suggested he was eager to stay on long-term as he still took a great sense of enjoyment from the role.

He called for an increase to the league soft cap to allow more AFLW staff to become full-time club employees, which he said would fast-track the improvement of the competition.

“What I saw in the first half today was the best footy I’ve ever seen in AFLW,” Starcevich said after his side’s 30-point loss to the Kangaroos.

“We were on the receiving end, trying to just keep our heads above water to be competitive, but they were awesome, the Kangas.

“Their pressure and their quick-decision ball-use was phenomenal, so it was very difficult to hang on.”

Starcevich said his team was continuing to evolve and had shown it could bounce back from disappointment before, but acknowledged the challenge of staying in touch with a North Melbourne side which powered through the season unbeaten.

“We start every pre-season campaign with the aim of winning a flag, but before you win a flag you’ve got to get to a grand final,” Starcevich said.

“To actually get there the amount of times we have is enormous for our program and our club and the character of our players.

“But it’s a bitter one to have to swallow and it’s such a long, hard road to get (back) there now.

“I think our competition is batting pretty deep now, when you consider a couple of teams that didn’t make the finals this year … it’s going to be harder and harder to win, so we just have to keep getting better.”

“But we’ll get to work, we’ll close the gap and get hungry, competitive and want to win it again.”

Starcevich suggested the Lions would be among the more active players in the AFLW trade period, which begins on Thursday and runs for seven days until December 11.

But he did not want to identify any particular parts of the ground the Lions would target, to avoid adding to the hurt of any of his players after the tough defeat.

“We’re still a club that players looking from the outside are inquisitive about joining, so I think that’s a good thing for us – we never really had that in the early part of our existence,” he said.

“We’re getting more and more inquiries from different players around the league as to ‘what are the possibilities?’ But that doesn’t mean they’re all coming in one big hit, because we’re pretty happy with the list that we’ve got as well.

“We have to be astute about what we need to keep getting better with, what type of player, and the needs that we need to fill.”