After the Lions were unable to unfurl their premiership flag to their fans last week at the Gabba due to Cyclone Alfred, the team are set to get their 2025 AFL season underway this Saturday against Sydney.
But the club is still navigating its way through multiple logistical hurdles, having not trained since last Wednesday.
Cyclone Alfred has wreaked havoc on Queensland over the past week, bringing with it widespread flooding and 120km/h winds, forcing some schools and businesses to close down.
More than 200,000 properties were left without power at one stage over the weekend, according to Premier David Crisafulli, with Queensland SES receiving a record 3,676 calls for assistance over the past 24 hours.
Fortunately, the Lions confirmed on Monday that their training base in Springfield Central had sustained ‘minimal’ damage but have been unable to train since last Wednesday.
Lions coaches, staff and players are understood to have regrouped and have opted to travel to New South Wales earlier than anticipated in order to give themselves the ‘best preparation’ for their match against Sydney on Saturday.
Brisbane Lions have confirmed that they will be heading to Sydney on Wednesday to prepare for their match against the Swans
The AFL opted to postpone the Brisbane Lions Opening Round clash against Geelong last week due to Cyclone Alfred
Areas of Queensland have been left underwater over the past four days, due to serious flooding
It comes as Football General Manager Danny Daly claimed that the pitch at the Gabba and at the Brighton Homes Arena training ground are both waterlogged in certain areas.
But he was hopeful that the club would be able to conduct a training session on Tuesday in Brisbane before jetting off to Sydney on Wednesday.
‘These things happen unfortunately in life, and you just need to be resilient, be calm about it and work your way through it. So, I’ve got no doubt our preparation will be spot on leading into our game against Sydney,’ Daly said.
‘We have the players back in the Club today (Monday) and they will have a bit of a hit-out indoors to get themselves up and going again.
‘We have been chatting to the AFL today and they have been fantastic through this whole past week in accommodating our needs and everything that we needed to do.
‘We will train somewhere tomorrow, whether it is the Gabba or Brighton Homes Arena, which are both pretty waterlogged at the minute as you can imagine.
‘We will head to Sydney on Wednesday then get a training in somewhere on Thursday on a dry ground as preparation for the game on Saturday, so we are just working through all the logistics.’
The AFL had opted to postpone the Lions Opening Round clash against Geelong on Thursday due to the nature of the storm, with league bosses confirming that the game will be rescheduled to be played in round three on Saturday, March 29.
The Gold Coast Titans’ training centre at Parkwood has been flooded, with the side also heading south to New South Wales
The league is, meanwhile, still to confirm when Gold Coast’s postponed clash against Essendon will take place, but it is expected to take place at the end of the 2025 home and away season.
‘First and foremost, on behalf of the football Club I hope everyone in Queensland and New South Wales are safe and well and we are all praying for you,’ Daly added.
‘To make sure everyone is safe and sound that’s the first priority for us, the human element of it. Then once that is taken care of you look at the footy side of it and you find a way to just deal with it and get on with it.
‘The past week has been very unprecedented and not what we had planned for, but these things do happen from time to time unfortunately, we are just grateful everyone has been able to get through it so far.’
The Lions’ decision to relocate to Sydney this week comes as the Gold Coast Titans have also been forced to leave their Parkwood training base to travel to New South Wales, after it had astonishingly been left under two metres of water.
The club take on the Canterbury Bulldogs this week and were expected to leave for Sydney on Tuesday.
