Justin Leppitsch is angry. And when Justin Leppitsch is angry his game face is a thing of beauty. It really is. When Justin Leppitsch is angry, he has a face like a clenched fist. On Saturday, Justin Leppitsch was angry.
The media training sheen is off him now. It’s as though the shinier parts of his key messages have been replaced with something dark and uneasy.
“Some of the crap that’s written about our players, basically lies written in the press annoy me, about our boys,” he told reporters who have been chewing on his leg through the winter.
“That kills me, but I can cop it, so bring it on. I’m big and strong enough to handle it and to be honest I don’t really rate the opinions of those that are speaking, so that’s the way it goes.”
After a listless 79-point loss on Sunday, you suspect he is no less angry the morning after the night before.
Kurt Vonnegut once wrote that “we know so little about life, we don’t really know what the good news is and what the bad news is”. But Vonnegut wasn’t at the slaughterhouse (the “Gabbattoir”) on Sunday. The Lions’ slumber is a deep, deep one.
Still, if you ask Craig Lambert, who has recently returned to the Lions as strategy and retention manager, much of the recent reporting around Brisbane is based on little understanding of what it’s like inside the club.
“I know Leppa’s been in the paper about player unrest, but the relationships he’s formed over the last eight to 10 months with the youngest list in the competition have been enormous,” says Lambert. “I’d welcome any reporter into our organisation for a week to see how tight the group has remained under very difficult circumstances.”
After Sunday’s disaster, there may be a few journalists take him up on the offer. But it is not empty rhetoric. Despite having won a solitary game, the Lions have re-signed 19 players this year.
“Look at someone like Sam Mayes, who if you believed what you read, was out the door,” says Lambert. “And this in a season where it’s been tough. I think if people are smart enough and they dig deep enough, that’s a great thing for our footy club.”
But this is what happens when you don’t win a lot of games – the media will grab at things that may not be there. “If we had 15-20 players out of contract saying that they don’t want to sign a deal, well then there’s some substance, but the opposite is true.”
After speaking with Lambert you sense that much of the recent reporting around Brisbane has been like chewing old gum – a predictable drama of the most monotonous kind. He has seen and heard much of it before, after leaving the Lions in 2010 to take on a fresh challenge at Greater Western Sydney.
If you ask Lambert, one of the reasons behind the success of the Giants is that their priority was to create an environment where the players and their families were cared for. It is for this reason Lambert and his wife Melissa have returned to Brisbane – a task that must seem, well gigantic. But Lambert believes there isn’t a challenge big enough that his wife couldn’t meet.
“Melissa’s amazing. You could start a 19th franchise in Afghanistan and somehow she’d make it work.”
But a 13-goal loss like Sunday’s is capable of tingeing any optimism with an uneasy nausea, and you can’t help but wonder if a coaching job in Kabul wouldn’t appeal to Leppitsch right now. The only silver lining on the large rainclouds that hovered over the Gabba is that the loss was to Lambert’s former employer.
When Lambert arrived at Western Sydney there were no resources aside from a group of young kids who he ominously describes as “special group that reminds me of the Brisbane that won those premierships”. And he is starting to see embryonic signs of it in the latest manifestation of the Lions.
“I see some really talented kids at our footy club, and some coming through that are going to be really special players for our organisation. Imagine our goal-to-goal line in four years – Schache, Hipwood, Andrews, McStay, and we’ve got a kid called Sam Skinner who was pick 47 who hasn’t played yet as he’s coming off a knee reconstruction, but is going to be an absolute star.”
However, even Lambert would understand that losses such as last night’s could make it difficult to see what would otherwise be obvious to an optimist like him.
“We’re going to continue to draft young talent, get games into them, and not have them leaking out the door. The formula’s pretty simple – if you keep a young group together and you draft well, and once they get to 22-23, you then start to have the club you want.”
The reason why those who have previously left the club can hardly be placed at the feet of Leppitsch, who had barely stepped into the role in time to conduct their exit interviews.
“I know as well as anybody that when you develop a team you lose for two or three years,” says Lambert. “But in regards to relationships and the mood around the place, I see a lot of similarities with the Giants and it gives me confidence that the Lions can rise again.”
A large part of any future success will rely on identifying, developing and retaining local talent. As simple as that sounds, the Lions’ approach to this has improved immensely over the past 10 years.
At the 2006 AFL draft, Brisbane’s recruiters had reached something not often achieved around a table on draft night – complete agreement. With pick 22 they would select Shane Edwards from the North Adelaide Football Club. Brisbane’s general manager of football reached for the microphone, cleared his throat and said… “Albert Proud, Mount Gravatt Football Club.” According to one of the recruiters at that table, he looked at those without head in hands and explained, “Leigh wanted a local boy.”
The contentious northern state academies will play an important role in not only developing talent, but also a stronger football culture. “The more Queensland kids you can get through the system the more chance we have selling the game in the northern states, which is critical, but also it helps with retention,” says Lambert.
While Queensland’s young footballers are showing promise, its facilities are not. The Gabba couldn’t be more dated unless you restored its dog track. For the Lion to wake, it is crucial this is addressed. While the AFL is working hard with Brisbane to get a new facility, Lambert believes it’s a hand brake. “Good people will always override facilities, but only for a certain amount of time.”
If Brisbane and the AFL can get that right, the future – as evidenced by the Giants on Sunday –may be bright. If not then the ground may give out beneath their feet entirely, and the Gabba will be turned into a museum forever consecrated to the memory of when Brisbane once had a great football team. But you sense it won’t come to that. The AFL has placed the Lion in a coma once before, I don’t fancy they’d want to do it again.
