A REFRESHED Jonathan Brown has issued a warning to all clubs preparing to face Brisbane in the coming weeks that he was ready to "rip in" after sitting so long on the sidelines.
His nine-week absence has felt like a suspension, he says, since he's been training with his Lions teammates, but sitting up in the coaches' box on game day.
But the multiple facial fractures sustained in round one against Fremantle are now healed. Brown visits surgeon Alastair Reid on Thursday for the final clearance, but he spoke yesterday as if that was a fait accompli.
"I'll have freshness on my side and most of the guys I'm coming up against will have nine or 10 games, so their bodies might be starting to tire," Brown said of facing North Melbourne on Saturday night at the Gabba. "If the boys are winning, it doesn't hurt that much, but seeing what my mates are going through, I just can't wait to rip in and help out."
The Lions need all the help they can get. Saturday's 36-point loss to Essendon was Brisbane's seventh straight defeat.
Brown wasn't prepared to say if he has ever returned to the Lions under more pressure to help secure a win.
"I don't really think about it that way," he said. "You feel the pressure to perform every game out there and I wouldn't want it any other way.
"I just hope I can help the boys. I'm sure I can as I'm very confident in my preparation."
But he does feel that this latest absence, plus missing the pre-season through groin surgery, will help him in the long run. He missed six games last year because of his damaged adductor and now eight this year.
"I've missed big chunks of the pre-season and early part of this year," Brown said. "It's given me more of an opportunity to recover and hopefully, it'll tack on a couple of years at the end of my footy career because of it."
While showing no fear about returning, he said his wife Kylie was a little apprehensive but nowhere near as concerned as his mother, Mary.
"My mum is a bit more worried. I'm not sure if she'll watch the game. I think we've got to realise that these sorts of incidents, touch wood, are very rare. And touch wood they won't happen twice to me in a row."
Teammates like Josh Drummond point out that the Lions do not see Brown as their saviour. "On Saturday, our structures fell apart; it wasn't the personnel we had out there," Drummond said. "We had a clear message of the way we wanted to play, set by the coaches, and the players didn't execute that properly."
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