Former Brisbane Lions skipper Dayne Zorko in no rush to hang up his boots

The hunger to win an AFL flag will ensure Brisbane Lions veteran Dayne Zorko plays for as long as his body allows or until he gets the dreaded “tap on the shoulder”.

The former Lions skipper, who turns 35 next week, signed a new one-year deal in November, a little more than a month after the devastation of Brisbane’s four-point grand final loss to Collingwood.

“I’m still chasing that premiership,” Zorko said on Wednesday ahead of the 13th season of his AFL career.

“To come so close, it’s disappointing but … we’ve got opportunity to go around again and try to rewrite the script.”

When asked if he would retire at the end of the 204 season, Zorko was adamant in his response as he jokingly compared his longevity to 39-year-old NBA legend LeBron James.

“I will not be putting a limit as to how long I play on. I feel great, the body’s feeling great, so I will just take it as it comes,” he said.

“How old’s LeBron, 40-odd? Just keep going … until I completely broke down or (Lions football manager) Danny (Daly) taps me on the shoulder, but the way I’m feeling and pulling up after training at the moment, I feel fantastic, so that’s great.”

Zorko said he had “moved on pretty quickly” from the grand final loss, taking solace from the Lions getting so close to winning the match despite Collingwood being the better team on the day.

“It was obviously disappointing to get so close and fall short. However, we weren’t the better team on the day so you can live with that a little bit,” he said.

“I guess the positives were we didn’t play our best football but we were right in it, so that gives us obviously a lot of confidence heading into this season … but we need to find that 1 or 2 per cent on days when our footy isn’t going as well (so) we can flip that script and turn that into the result we’re chasing.

“That’s something that we’re focusing on this pre-season.”

The Lions weren’t the only Brisbane team to lose a grand final last season, with the Broncos blowing a big lead in the NRL decider in being beaten 26-24 by Penrith.

Both of the Brisbane teams crossed paths last week at pre-season training camps on the Sunshine Coast.

“Not necessarily on that camp, but we’d already spoken, maybe over a few beverages as to where it all went wrong for (both teams), but I know they took a lot of great learnings from their loss as well, as have we, so let’s hope we can have another good year of sport in Brisbane,” Zorko said.