Lions superstar Hugh McCluggage is likely to get some reprieve on Saturday night, at least in an individual sense, as Gold Coast senior coach Damien Hardwick confirmed it's unlikely the Suns will send a tagger to him.
That would differ from the approach employed by Cats coach Chris Scott last week, who sent Irish tagger Oisin Mullin to the All-Australian in the qualifying final.
Hardwick was quizzed about his tactics for the Brisbane midfielder ahead of the blockbuster QClash semi-final on Saturday night, with pundits highlighting how successful the Cats utilised the tag to completely halt McCluggage's influence.
However, the three-time premiership coach wasn't buying into the idea, highlighting the differences in his system compared to Geelong's.
"We play a different system than [Geelong] obviously, so there's things we'll do to manage that talent without trying to completely take it away," Hardwick told media on Thursday.
"If it does get out of hand, we've got things that we can do to quell that influence. What we generally do is back our boys in. It will be a team responsibility at the start, so Hugh might be breathing a sigh of relief.
"What we do is back our boys in against the best opposition players and then go to plan B if we need to."
McCluggage was well held by Mullin, recording a season-low 14 disposals and just a single score involvement, but Hardwick expects a greater challenge from the 27-year-old.
"Good players often don't play two bad ones in a row, but we are hoping Hugh has another down week this week. He's a special player," Hardwick said.
"It's going to be a great contest through that middle part of the ground. It's been an area of the ground previously that we haven't gone as well against the Lions, but last time we played we took that on board and got the required result, so it's going to be a great challenge again."
SHardwick suggested the match will likely be played in a similar fashion to the earlier Q-Clashes of 2025 as both teams look to butt heads with their respective playstyles.
"Good teams are good teams because they effectively play the same way [every week]," Hardwick said.
"We know how Brisbane play really well, but they just do it better than anyone else. It's why they've had consistently good performances under Fagan for a long period of time... Our job defensively is to take that away from them as best we can."
The QClash takes the AFL's centre stage for the first time in September this Saturday, with the first bounce between the bitter rivals at 7:35pm (AEST).
