WITH Jonathan Brown desperate to lead Victoria in the Hall of Fame match on Saturday night, Brisbane Lions coach Leigh Matthews is praying he will not exacerbate his quad injury after his most important player pulled out of the match against Geelong last weekend.

Matthews left no doubt as to his thoughts on his players' involvement in the Hall of Fame game. "What do they say — if you've got nothing good to say about something, say nothing," he said. "I've been trying to put my footy fan hat on. I'm not going to talk it down (but) I've got my Lions hat on, and it's hard for me to take my Lions hat off … As Lions coach I don't want any of our players to play, really, because there's nothing to gain, and there's a lot to lose if they hurt themselves.

"It's all about the fans to be honest, and sometimes you think as a footy fan but, really, when I'm in my job I can't think as a footy fan."

The Lions have received a hammer blow heading into the first break of the season, with prime mover Simon Black potentially facing several weeks on the sidelines with osteitis pubis and Brown struggling with quad tightness.

Matthews said he understood that Brown, having been appointed captain of his home state months in advance, would move "heaven and earth" to get on the field, adding that he had found himself in a similar situation as a player when he captained Victoria despite a troublesome Achilles tendon.

"It's a big honour to captain Victoria. You've got players who have never put the Victorian jumper on who are getting a chance to put the Victorian jumper on so you can understand, as Jonathan has been saying, it's a once in a lifetime opportunity, so it's very hard for a player not to take that opportunity," Matthews said. "I suspect he will feel OK later in the week and I just hope the medical people with the Victorian team have the same degree of care as our people felt they needed to have on Saturday night."

Matthews said Black had been "fairly debilitated" by osteitis in the second half of last season and had pulled up sore after the game against Melbourne two weeks ago."We thought there was no choice but to take the conservative line there … there's 15, 16 games to go."