DUFF'S EDITORIAL - CHRIS FAGAN (30.09.2026)

Mark Duffield (0:08)

Mailin WA for WA. This is Mornings with Mark Duffield on SENWA.

Hello, everybody. Welcome to the SENWA Radio Studio. We're out here at Optus Stadium. Wednesday morning in Perth, we're here thanks to Beaumont Homes' award-winning design, built to be loved forever. Showers in Perth today, raining outside as we speak, atop of 19 degrees. Made in WA for WA, this is Mornings with Mark Duffield on SENWA.

I want to pay tribute to Brisbane coach Chris Fagan. And if he does ride off into the sunset after his third Premiership and his fourth Grand Final in as many years, he will leave with one of football's most remarkable coaching records, and one of the game's most remarkable coaching stories. So Fagan is taking his time to consider his position in the wake of Brisbane's remarkable three-peat, achieved in the dying minutes of a remarkable Grand Final on Saturday at Fremantle's expense.

Chris Fagan did not play AFL football. Instead, he spent his playing career at various clubs in his home state of Tasmania. It was a career that spanned 260 games between 1978 and 1990 He became the inaugural coach of the Tassie Mariners under 18 team that played in what is now known as the Talent League, which is, of course, is Melbourne-based. His first role at any level at any AFL club came at the age of 37 when he was appointed as the coach of the Melbourne Reserves team. He later became an assistant coach with the seniors, and then the general manager of Footy Operations. He shifted to Hawthorne 10 years in to his AFL coaching and administrative career, spent six years as the head of coaching and development at the Hawks between 2008 and 2013 before becoming the Footy Operations manager from 2013 to 2016

His time at Hawthorne, of course, coincided with the club winning four AFL Premierships and playing in five AFL Grand Finals. He began his time at Brisbane in 2017, after the Lions had finished the 2016 season in 17th, and second last place on the AFL ladder. The Lions won the wooden spoon in Fagan's first year. That one place on the ladder, the team dropped in that first year, is one of only two seasons during Fagan's 10-year tenure, that the Lions have lost ground on the competition. The other fall came between the years 2020 and 2021, when Brisbane dipped from fourth to fifth on the ladder. Other than that, they have either improved or maintained their position, and the progression reads like this. 18th to 15th to fifth to fourth to fifth to fourth to second, then first, first and first. That is an incredible record at Brisbane.

In his 28 years at AFL clubs, the teams Fagan has had an association and an involvement with have played in a remarkable nine AFL Grand Finals for seven AFL Premierships. He is not an Uber style interventionist coach in the mold of an Alistair Clarkson or a Ross Lyme. He is a manager. He engages and uses the coaching resources at his disposal. It is significant that as he can contemplates stepping aside at least two members of his coaching staff at Brisbane, Danny Daly and Cameron Bruce have been identified as realistic chances to be his successor. Now, as the face of coaching in the AFL undergoes dramatic change, and we've seen Carlton appoint and back an untried coach like Josh Fraser, we've seen Essendon appoint Mark McVay in preference to former coach James Hurd, and North Melbourne may well be on the verge of appointing an untried coach like Jamie Graham, Daniel Gian Siracusa or Corey Enright over Nathan Buckley, while West Coast Premiership coach and former North Captain and Premiership player Adam Simpson withdrew from the race after discussions with the club over what they were looking for. In Fagan, everything old has become new again in the AFL. He might have been the oldest coach to ever start his career at 55 when appointed by the Lions, but he's become a template for the type of coach that clubs want, the type that will build trust and relationships with players. It's the sort of coach this, his grand final adversary, Justin Longmuir is. It will almost certainly be the type of coach Jamie Graham would be if he gets the gig at North Melbourne.