Source :- PERTH NOW NEWS
Brisbane’s shock hammering from a red-hot Carlton is being described as a “little dip” by milestone man Jarrod Berry.
Berry, who will play his 200th AFL game when the Lions host Hawthorn on Friday night, points to a similar loss at the same stage of last season.
Last Saturday, the Blues thrashed Brisbane by 76 points in a round-21 boilover that snapped the Lions’ seven-game winning streak.
In the same round last year Brisbane were trounced by Gold Coast by 66 points but still went on to win their second straight premiership.
“It’s one of those things, we’ve been really good for about seven weeks now and you have a little dip and get exposed by a good opposition,” Berry told reporters on Tuesday.
“So we’re not jumping at shadows.
“There’s always lessons in every game but you look back to last year and we had a bad loss against the Gold Coast Suns in a similar round.
“It’s just fatigue of the season. It gets to that point where if you’re not 100 per cent, teams can find you out – and we certainly got found out at the weekend.”
The Lions slipped out of the top four with their latest loss and sit fifth ahead of hosting the third-placed Hawks.
Brisbane, fourth-placed Adelaide, and sixth-placed Melbourne all have 52 premiership points and are one win ahead of seventh and eighth.
“We’re a pretty consistent club so the feeling is pretty much the same,” he said.
“Every team goes through the fatigue. It’s a long, gruelling season and it does catch up with you here and there.
“But it’s important that your lows aren’t too low and your highs aren’t too high, and you stay somewhere in between with all that sort of stuff.”
After playing Hawthorn the Lions host Gold Coast before travelling to meet Collingwood ahead of the finals.
“Pretty much since we started our seven-game winning streak, it was a must-win for us, so we treat this like a little mini finals series,” Berry said.
“Every game, every moment, means a lot, so it’s important we don’t focus on the result, we focus on our processes and that is how we play fearless football.”
