Swann 'scrambling' to sort Lions mess

Brisbane Lions chief executive Greg Swann concedes AFL supporters have no reason to watch the beleaguered side after their woeful start to the season.

Brisbane Lions chief executive Greg Swann admits the average AFL fan currently has no reason to watch his winless and "uncompetitive" club.

As the Lions reel from five straight losses to start the season and the fallout from coach Justin Leppitsch's jumper-grabbing incident, Swann said he is "scrambling" to determine why they are playing so badly.

When it was put to him by Triple M's Grill Team that supporters don't have a reason to watch Brisbane at the moment, Swann said: "That's a fair point."

"In the pre-season and even in the first game we were super competitive and since then we haven't been so that's something we need to address.

"I don't know what's happened, we've just ended up being uncompetitive.

"I'm scrambling to try and justify why we're no good, but at the end of the day you don't have to coach effort and effort seems to be the thing that hasn't been there ... we've folded really easily.

"We were really competitive in first quarters in quite a few of the games we have been in but the minute it seems to turn we seem to collapse - that's the biggest concern for us."

Swann said he was unsure how details of Leppitsch's weekend confrontation with rookie-listed player Zac O'Brien were leaked to the media.

Leppitsch grabbed O'Brien by the jumper to pull him down from a step after the player had verbally abused reserves coach Shane Woewodin.

Both Leppitsch and O'Brien have made public apologies for their actions, which occurred at half-time of the NEAFL game that followed Saturday night's QClash at Metricon Stadium.

"We're not having a witch hunt about it ... you'd certainly prefer it to have remained in house because it had been resolved," Swann said.

"Even from Zac's point of view he doesn't want to be associated with telling a coach where to go so it's not good for him, not good for Leppa and not good for the club.

"People were trying to make more of it than what it was.

"Hopefully we can move on, we've got to start winning games of football."


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Source: AAP


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