Brisbane's Jarrod Berry has revealed the AFL club's mindset shift from hunter to hunted as they prepare for every rival's best.
The Lions have finished second, second, fourth and sixth in recent seasons, improving a disappointing September record in 2022 with a run to the preliminary final.
Berry believes that consistency, coupled with an eye-catching off-season of recruitment and drafting, has firmly landed them in the sights of fellow contenders.
"I guess we're probably a scalp for a lot of teams at the moment," he said.
"We were like that a few years back when we weren't doing too well and we were always getting up for games and trying to take scalps."
Brisbane are 2-2 after a testing opening month, bouncing back from losses to a fired-up Port Adelaide and Western Bulldogs with wins over the credentialed Melbourne and Collingwood.
"We're the hunted now, we're not hunting," Berry said.
"We spoke about that a lot in our meetings and have spoken about changing our mindset to being the hunters, so that's what you can expect for the rest of the year."
Berry was thrilled for teammates Eric Hipwood and Joe Daniher countering midweek criticism with key roles in their defeat of the Magpies.
"I think our boys that were under a bit of pressure fired, and that's awesome, that's what we want to see," he said.
"I don't know how much they read into it, but you just love seeing your teammates succeed, especially when they're under pressure like that."
Coach Chris Fagan felt that criticism was unwarranted.
"I wasn't disturbed by last week's performance at all," he said after their win over Collingwood.
"I feel like everyone thinks we're going to go out there and win every week.
"It's not how it works in the AFL; it's a hard, tough, competition and you have to earn every single win."
Brisbane enjoyed big crowds in their previous two Gabba clashes but will go off-Broadway for this week's Gather Round in the Adelaide Hills, against North Melbourne in Mt Barker on Saturday.
