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Gash puts Rich in doubt

Gash puts Rich in doubt

03/11/2010 09:01:10 PM

Reigning Rising Star Daniel Rich needed 22 stitches above his eye after a nasty head clash with Daniel Merrett provided Brisbane with a major scare ahead of its practice match against Hawthorn on the Gold Coast.

Merrett walked away relatively unscathed and it is understood Rich sustained no serious damage from the training mishap, but he is understandably in doubt for Friday's trial match despite being named.

The teenager may be forced to miss the clash against the Hawks, but key Lions trio Luke Power, Simon Black and Josh Drummond will all take the field for their first competitive hit-outs of the year.

The spotlight will be on vice-captain Power, who was upbeat about his fitness after overcoming a niggling groin injury sustained in early January that saw the veteran travel to Adelaide for treatment.

"It's ready to go and my fitness is fine ... I've been running for six weeks now and I only really missed two or three weeks," Power said.

"I did all the pre-season training up until January so fitness is not a problem."

Brisbane has made a sluggish start to the pre-season.

Losses to the Western Bulldogs and Carlton were followed by an abandoned fixture against Geelong due to the chaotic weather that struck Melbourne last weekend.

With expectation from fans and pundits at an all-time high since the club's hat-trick of premierships from 2001-03, Power was unwilling to dismiss the importance of pre-season form.

"While people say (pre-season wins) are not that important, if you win you are usually executing what you have been training all pre-season to do," he said.

"It would be nice to win one before the start of the season - Round 1 is still the aim but it would be nice to get a win."

The Lions are set to play an intra-club match at Coorparoo on Thursday to make up for the missed game against the Cats.

Power admitted the last-minute abandonment was less than ideal for the squad that made the journey to Melbourne last weekend, but was not too concerned about the impact of the unwanted disruption.

"The players ended up doing the pre-game warm-up twice so that would be a bit of a shock to the system when you don't actually do anything," he said.

"We'll get a run tomorrow and then we'll have another one next week, and even if we are a touch underdone we'll still be competitive and come Round 1 we'll probably be fresher."

Brisbane will don its new predominantly-white clash strip for the first time against Hawthorn on Friday and it will make its debut in the season proper in Round 5 against Melbourne.

Meanwhile, Power was recently named as the players' new representative on the AFL Laws of the Game Committee and said it was an honour.

"I'll definitely be listening to the views of the players and hopefully contributing from their viewpoint - they're key stake holders," he said.

"It's just nice to be nominated, and it's definitely something that I'm going to be taking very seriously."

 

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