Brisbane coach Chris Fagan believes dropping a hard tag on St Kilda superstar Nasiah Wanganeen-Milera and urging his Will Ashcroft-led midfield to focus on themselves proved critical as the Lions claimed their first win of the AFL season.
On Saturday afternoon, the reigning premiers ran over the top of St Kilda to claim a fiery 33-point win and get their two-time premiership defence off the mark.
The game was on a knife's edge until late in the final quarter, when Keidean Coleman kickstarted a run of six unanswered goals to deliver a 17.11 (113) to 11.14 (80) win.
In the first half, Jarrod Berry tagged and roughed up Wanganeen-Milera to try and get under his skin, including sucking him into giving away a free kick for a high jumper punch in a second-quarter scuffle.
At half-time, Wanganeen-Milera had a game-high 17 disposals, three clearances and 352 metres gained - and Brisbane dropped the hard tag.
"Nasiah had a fair bit of ball in the first half, but it wasn't like overly effective," Fagan said.
"So we just decided at half-time to free our mids up a little bit. Josh Dunkley sort of went to Nasiah at stoppage. But outside of that, we didn't worry too much about him. I think we played better as a result of that to some degree.Â
"You've got to give tagging him a fair bit of consideration, because he's a damaging and fantastic player. But no, I thought when we just got in there and went after the ball ourselves in that second half, I felt like that really helped."
The gun Saint finished with 29 disposals, 698 metres gained and five clearances.
"I felt the tag was ineffective and he won that battle," Saints coach Ross Lyon said.
Lyon felt Brisbane's midfield took the game away from them late.
Two-time Norm Smith Medallist Will Ashcroft (29 disposals, 11 clearances) was huge in the final term, after what Fagan described as a quiet start to the game and season.
"I had to give him a little bit of a poke at three-quarter time. I said 'mate, it's about time you got going'. And he said to me after the game, 'did I get going? And I said: 'you did mate, thanks for that.' So he was terrific," Fagan said.
The "influential" Berry was excellent on the wing, finishing with 31 disposals and 600 metres gained.
Brisbane's win came at a cost ahead of the Easter Thursday clash with Collingwood, when Harris Andrews (suspension) and Hugh McCluggage (calf) are still unavailable.
Key defender Darcy Gardiner suffered a "quite significant" right shoulder injury early in the final quarter and backman Noah Answerth was concussed by Alix Tauru while Taura took a hanger in the third term.
Saints forward Cooper Sharman (three goals) was concussed in the third quarter.
Liam Ryan kicked three goals but could come under scrutiny for knocking over Berry off the ball in the second term.
Both teams were horrendously inefficient around goal before Ryan finally dribbled through the opening major late in the first quarter.
The game proved an entertaining arm wrestle from there, with 11 lead changes.
Wanganeen-Milera went into the middle at the start of the final quarter and helped give the Saints the lead.
But from there it was all Brisbane, with Wanganeen-Milera on the bench as the Lions started their surge to victory and St Kilda slipped to 1-3 ahead of the bye.
"I thought we were right in it at three-quarter time, did a lot right, and then they overwhelmed us in the end," Lyon said.
