High-octane, handballing offences have become all the rage this season.
Only four sides in the AFL kick the ball fewer times in a given match than runaway ladder leaders Fremantle, while the second-placed Sydney Swans average over 120 metres gained by handball more than the next-best Collingwood Magpies.
Finals fancies the Demons, Hawks and Cats are all above AFL average for handball metres gained too.
However, the team everyone has been chasing for more than two years, the Brisbane Lions, have not been tempted by the landscape's shifting approach to ball movement. As that same landscape has seen in recent weeks, by way of resounding victories over the Sydney Swans and Geelong Cats, their way is still working just fine.
The Lions are the best proponent of the game's most crucial skill - the kick.
The Lions defend with the ball. At their best, the Lions' backline will play a game of 'kick to kick', controlling tempo, refusing to be flustered or hurried into a dreadful skill error. The side are third for kick metres in the league, but last for metres per kick, showing just how content they are to chip it amongst themselves.
The Lions are first in the league for marks per game (with six more than second), and average +41 kicks per game. They are last for handball metres gained differential, while the Swans are runaway first. They're bucking the trend. Fremantle, aided by the excellent aerialists at both ends of the ground, admittedly average the largest differential in kicking metres gained per game in the AFL.
Aiding the Lions' endeavours are their pillars at either end, and ruckmen who are capable above their heads. The Lions are first in the code for marks on the lead, contested marks, and intercept marks.
One trend the Lions haven't ignored is the importance of scoring from turnover, sitting third for points scored from this source in the league.
The one aspect of their game that makes all of this possible, however, isn't the execution of a given skill, or particular personnel. It's patience, and, the knowledge of when not to be patient.
This uber-disciplined side are lethally restrained. Like a crocodile stalking its prey, they are content to possess the Sherrin, lying in wait for a lapse in team defence, before exploiting such a lapse, or moment of individual laziness, with a devastating and powerful precision.
They will defend with discipline themselves, force an error, and then exploit that turnover without allowing their opponents a second's rest. Brisbane's defensive generals will always try to mark first and explode into an offensive manoeuvre while the opposition are scrambled.
Everything starts with their enviable backline, though, and that backline has been critical to recent, powerful victories.
There's been a tactical aggression to the team defence that has brought into play, in earnest, the strengths of their most important player.
Instead of trying to beat the opposition back on turnover, the Lions have more proactively charged at the ball carrier, forcing long, haphazard kicks - kicks that with an inevitable, metronomic consistency, end up on the chest of one Harris Andrews.
Needle-moving midfielder Lachie Neale offered that both their well-timed dare in attack, and proactive defence have been intentional, when speaking to broadcaster Fox Footy, after the Lions' victory last time out, offering that their poor start to the season was due to failures in these areas.
"I think it's been a theme for all of our premiership-winning seasons and even our Grand Final run in ‘23," he said.
"We want to be daring and brave and not go into our shells with the ball, and even defensively - come forward, attack and get at them (the opposition) - which we probably weren't doing well enough in the first half of the year.
"We tend to think that because we've been successful, we've got to protect what we have, but nah, stuff that, let's get at the game. Let's really be brave with our ball movement and defence, and in the contest, be brave as well."
Coach Chris Fagan, like many of his contemporaries, is big on themes, and Neale let the landscape in on the one "Fages" has been rolling out most as the side look to claim their third straight premiership, for the second time in their short history.
"We've had 'dancing on thin ice', 'run towards the fire', and at the moment, "Fages" is loving the Braveheart themes in being brave, and really taking the game on."
Neale is a major part of one of the league's most heralded midfield units, and make no mistake, their dominance in the centre square is playing its part in the Lions' resurgence, too.
The incredibly deep unit is first for clearance differential, and first for scores from centre ball-up, with one beneficiary in Kai Lohmann praising the work of the unit after his recent, five-goal outburst.
"When we defend really well, and squeeze out, we make it really hard for these teams to get through us, and we all get rewarded up the ground,” Lohmann said.
"It helps when we're winning clearance. When we can get it forward and get one-on-ones ahead of the ball, it's really dangerous."
And most ominously, there are pieces to return. The Lions have managed their current form while using 35 players - five more than Fremantle, four more than Geelong and and two more than Sydney.
Two of the side's best kicks, two of their most potent architects, most renowned for unlocking defences, are Dayne Zorko and Keidean Coleman, the latter of whom made his welcome return via the VFL on the weekend.
Gun midfielder Hugh McCluggage is still missing, Oscar Allen and Lincoln McCarthy can't get a look in, and touted draftees Sam Marshall and Dan Annable have improvement ahead of them.
What a club and what a system Chris Fagan, Danny Daly, and Dom Ambrogio have built. Who could bet against it claiming a third straight flag? Not me.
