Brisbane goalsneak Kai Lohmann is one of the form forwards in the AFL right now and says he has Channel 7’s Dale Thomas to thank for it. The 23-year-old is equal sixth on the Coleman Medal leaderboard with 46 goals for the year, which puts him behind only Hawthorn’s Nick Watson among small forwards on that list.
Turnaround after the bye
Lohmann has kicked goals in all but three games this season, all of which came in a four-week stretch just before the Lions’ Round 15 bye. Since then, he has kicked 24 goals in seven games, including two hauls of five, one of four, and no games with less than two. It’s been a season-defining turnaround for the two-time premiership goalkicker which has coincided with Brisbane’s resurgence back up the ladder.
Thomas’s commentary inspired him
Speaking after his five-goal effort in the Lions’ 67-point thumping of Hawthorn on Friday night, Lohmann revealed Thomas had inadvertently played a role in his late-season flourish. “Before the bye, I just wasn’t playing my best and I had a chat with Hugh McCluggage — he’s a really great leader of the football club,” Lohmann told Seven’s Extra Time. “And he just said to me like, we weren’t even talking about it, but he just said, ‘Go watch the (2025) grand final and listen to the commentators’, and I sent back what Daisy said: ‘He (Lohmann) just hasn’t stopped moving and he’s been really hard to play on down there’. “So last few weeks, I’ve had an emphasis trying not to stay still, just keep moving and give my pressure and being a really hard matchup, and it’s been working. Thanks for that, Dais.”
Big-game player
The extroverted showman is a proven big-game player, having kicked two goals in last year’s grand final against Geelong, having kicked another four the previous year’s decider against Sydney. Lohmann said he always has an emphasis on playing his best footy at the pointy end of the season. “The past few years, I’ve sort of been up and down a bit in my form, but in the finals, it gets to the finals and the prime time games where I sort of play well in a row,” he said. “I’ve been consistent the last probably seven weeks now, so I’m really just trying to build my form and stick to what I know and stick with three focuses every week. And yeah, it seems to be working.”
