2025 Round 12: Essendon Scare, McCluggage Flair

Brisbane Lions 13.12 (90) defeated Essendon Bombers 11.6 (72) at the Gabba.

A dreaded lurgy struck me down this week, ruining any chance I might have had of getting to the Gabba to see the men’s team take on a depleted Essendon (and also getting this review out on time!).

But after watching the game, which may have been a decent watch for a neutral, from the comfort of my couch, I’m probably glad I didn’t make it out to what seemed like a bit of a miserable, rain-impacted Thursday night at the footy.

Yes, the Lions won, but once again it was against opposition they were expected to soundly beat. The first quarter was vintage attacking Lions football, and it looked like it was going to end up the percentage-boosting hammering we probably need to inflict on a team at some point.

But, like many Lions fans expected, they let the Bombers back into the game. In fairness, the Bombers did play pretty well throughout the second half.

Yes, the Lions were off a five-day break after beating a decent Hawthorn team at the MCG. They were likely a bit exhausted.

But it does seem that these teams who are expected to be easily beaten by the reigning premiers often rise to the occasion, which kind of makes sense, because they really have nothing to lose. The Bombers definitely played with some youthful abandon, and they were quite impressive in stages.

But we’ll take the win, move on, rinse, repeat. No point peaking in May, after all.

Still, there were some standout performers. Let's look at the player ratings.

Vintage Hugh

Against the Bombers, that was Hugh McCluggage’s second-highest rated game ever. And it’s pretty easy to see why: 41 disposals, 17 of them contested, and a whopping 13 inside 50s. He even managed seven clearances. Those are elite numbers.

McCluggage is quietly assembling an All-Australian–type season. He’s definitely the most consistently good midfielder in the Lions engine, outshining the flashier types like Lachie Neale and Will Ashcroft.

Also of note: Noah Answerth, who was particularly good—racking up 20 disposals (which seems very high for the role he plays) and even managing to snag a goal in what was his highest-rated game ever for the Lions with 16.4 ratings points. He’s been ticking along, Noah, and putting in some good shifts recently, taking over the role vacated by the injured Brandon Starcevich.

A few tired heads

Let’s quickly touch on a few of the apparent underperformers.

I’ll put on the record that I think Eric Hipwood is playing an okay season so far. But he’s still got a ways to go to cement his place as the Daniher replacement Brisbane obviously need. Thus far, 2025 looks to be his third-best season, behind both 2020 and 2021 (2020 being the year). That said, he does need to step up a bit more and have more impact on the scoreboard.

Hipwood had a low impact against the Bombers, managing only 12 disposals at 67% efficiency. While he had four score involvements and took one shot at goal (which he converted), he didn’t do much else. That’s probably not good enough for the number one tall forward at the Brisbane Lions.

Logan Morris might be a surprise inclusion in the bottom five considering he did score two goals and had six score involvements. But his disposal efficiency was woeful at 36%—the worst of all Lions by 14%. Some might say ‘that doesn’t matter as long as he kicks goals’ (and I agree with them partially) but his player rating is being impacted by some poor skills.

And finally, it seems Levi Ashcroft might have felt the effects of the short turnaround, putting in one of his poorer efforts for the season. He did have a high disposal efficiency (93%) from 15 disposals, but was a bit slack in defence, with no tackles and only seven pressure acts. We probably forget that the first year of an AFL career can be gruelling, and Levi did have a bit of an interrupted pre-season. He probably needs the eight days until the next match against the Crows!

I’m going to leave it at that for the time being. Again, thanks for reading, even if this is a few days late.

Our next match is against the rampaging Adelaide Crows in Adelaide, which is a bit of a scary proposition at the moment. I hope we can lace up our boots in Round 13 and manage to put some scoreboard pressure on, because we’ve been a bit poor at kicking majors of late.

Til then, folks!