According to victorious Adelaide Crows coach Neil Craig the Brisbane Lions can be a scarier prospect without their best player and captain, Jonathan Brown.
"Whoever comes in and replaces Jonathan wants to do really well, and I'm sure the players of the Brisbane Lions, particularly their forward line, will say he's not here we need to pick the rope up, so it can be more dangerous situation without him playing."
"That might sound a bit stupid, but sometimes you want him to play, because you're not quite sure about what's going to happen if he's not there," said Craig.
Robbed of the chance to play his 200th first-grade game against the team he debuted against back in 2000, Brown would have undoubtedly provided Brisbane with some much-needed finishing power.
In their skipper's absence, the Lions kicked a wobbly 13.19 (97), falling to the Crows by seven points after scores were level going into the final term.
For Adelaide, who ended a three-game losing streak, the victory tastes all the sweeter having overcome the loss of key midfielders Bernie Vince (knee) and Chris Knights (hamstring), both within the first half.
"It's very unusual to be able to win a game of football when you're two down on the interchange early in the game, and particularly when those two guys are quality midfielders in Knights and Vince, so that just adds to the weight of the win."
"(To) lose two midfielders in those conditions, it's not as if we've lost a tall defender that you can cover with a midfielder, so it was a great effort by our playing group, a fantastic effort," said Craig.
In his post-match address, Lions coach Michael Voss suggested that the injuries would be more keenly felt in the weeks to come as the Crows bounce back from playing so much football while two short on the interchange.
"We've had games where we've finished off pretty strong two down on the interchange bench and you more feel the consequences in the following weeks rather than that game itself," Voss said.
"I don't know how they'll come off the ground, but being hot and two down, I imagine that'll be a fair strain on their boys for next week."
If Voss is right, and Adelaide are weary in their next clash against competition leaders Collingwood, the consequences could be severe.
But that wasn't going to stop Craig from savouring the win and the Adelaide coach announced the Crows would continue to dig deep and fight till the final round of competition.
"I think we're true to our word at the moment as running to the line, playing the season out with that sort of intent and that's what we need to do for the next two games against Collingwood and St Kilda," Craig said.
The first order of business for Adelaide in the short week ahead will be addressing their first-quarter intesnity levels, after Craig accused them of starting the match with a tempo fit for a training session.
"Our start was horrendous. Brisbane Lions, their start was probably the start that we were looking for, and to go head-to-head with that sort of intensity we were really poor," said Craig.
"It's a situation where if you said to a training group, 'we're just going to have a light night, take it easy,' that's exactly what you see, and that's why we were so poor with our execution... I thought that picked up considerably from the second quarter onwards."