Brisbane’s 2019 season came to an end on Saturday night, going out in straight sets despite two finals at the Gabba.
They’re a young team who jumped quickly up the ladder this season, but David King has warned them not expect a linear improvement in 2020.
“The Brisbane Lions are probably not going to get this opportunity again,” King told SEN’s Whateley.
“This was a gilt-edged opportunity to be the premiers. It really was. You can say what you like, but they’ve blown a serious opportunity.
“They’ve performed well, great season, but in the cool light of day they’ll sit back and say we had a home final with the opportunity to go straight through to a Prelim, how do we get back there again?
“The history of the competition, very rarely do you get this sort of opportunity again the next season or the season after that. It’s a tough competition.
“They’ve been the healthiest team in the competition. They’ve had one injury in the last six weeks and that was Mitch Robinson.
“I just hope it’s not Adelaide of 2016 and 2017, where they’ve had a charmed run with injuries and haven’t had to look at that underbelly and then when you start to get some in 20 games time, where are you?
“Have you got any AFL experience into that next wave? Or have you got another player to throw into this mix of 22 from a trade point of view because you need to get better every year.”
Melbourne made the Preliminary Finals last year before falling off a cliff and finishing 17th in 2019.
Lions CEO Greg Swann said before the loss to GWS that he believes they have enough going their way to avoid ‘doing a Melbourne’.
“People actually quite often remind you that you’re going to ‘do a Melbourne’, but our NEAFL team (won) the Grand Final and were undefeated and we’ve got some really good young blokes in that team,” Swann told AFL Nation.
“We’ve been lucky with injuries so we haven’t had to call on them, but we’ve had some guys we’ve been looking to get into the team so I think that competitiveness for spots will keep us pretty hungry for next year.”