AFL legend Luke Hodge says it’s dangerous to dismiss the Lions as premiership contenders despite Lachie Neale joining casualty list

Former Brisbane star Luke Hodge has warned against writing off the “resilient” Lions in their bid for back-to-back premierships.

The Lions’ hopes of successive flags took a huge blow when co-captain Lachie Neale tore his calf in Brisbane’s 38-point qualifying final loss to Geelong last Friday night at the MCG.

Neale has joined Eric Hipwood (knee), Noah Answerth (Achilles), Jack Payne (knee), Keidean Coleman (quad), Linc McCarthy (knee) and Tom Doedee (wrist) as players who won’t play again this year.

It has seemingly left Brisbane vulnerable heading into Saturday night’s do-or-die semi-final against a confident Gold Coast Suns outfit at the Gabba.

However, Hodge, who won four premierships with Hawthorn before spending two seasons with Brisbane, said the Lions were no strangers to overcoming adversity.

“To go through and play in a grand final, and win a grand final, you need a lot of things going your way,” Hodge said on Monday at the Brisbane leg of the AFL Premiership Cup Tour.

“Injuries are one of those, but you’ve also got to look back and (know) they’ve had a lot of injuries, but look at the resilience they’ve built up over the last five or six years to play in bigger away finals and win, to look at how many injuries they had last year, to look at being 44 points down against GWS (in last year’s semi-final), to look at being 25 points down to the Cats in (last year’s) prelim, so what you do know about this side is they’re a resilient side.

“There is no doubt (Brisbane coach) Chris Fagan will be drawing on what they’ve learnt over the last 24 months and try to will the guys on.

“Losing Lachie Neale is massive. They’ve lost a lot of good senior players throughout the year, but one thing about the Lions is they’ve always been able to find someone to step up.

“You can’t say the Lions can’t do it, because they’ve been able to do it for 18 months, and win a premiership by doing it last year with a lot of injuries.”

Hodge was excited that a QClash would be part of a top-eight series for the first time after the Suns won their maiden finals clash by one point over Fremantle at Optus Stadium.

“It’ll be great for Brisbane if they’re able to get through for a back-to-back opportunity, but then the story on Gold Coast is unreal,” he said.

“The QClash has grown, and especially with Gold Coast developing over the last few years, it’s getting more of a rivalry … but where these real rivalries really grow is in September, and the best part of it is that both teams are playing really good footy at the moment, and we’re going to see a fairly big game on Saturday night.”