Never played AFL, too old? If this is Fagan’s farewell, he’s broken the mould

We know that the 2026 grand final will be the final time that Lachie Neale takes the field for the Brisbane Lions, a fact established by the AFL appeals tribunal’s astonishing verdict less than 48 hours before the game.

What is much less certain, yet no less important, is the possibility that this will be the final game in the extraordinary story – and it is a hell of a story, rather than a mere “career” – of Chris Fagan’s period as coach of a club that was anchored near the bottom when he took the wheel 10 years ago.

Then, the Lions struggled to retain young talent, much less land players with the standing of Neale and Luke Hodge, and were mired in a mountain of debt that reached frightening levels, and rendered the Lions reliant on heavy AFL backing.

While the see-sawing Neale tribunal circus has owned pre-grand final coverage, Fagan’s future has been a subterranean topic, in a manner befitting the coach’s understated style.

Fagan is not an artful dodger when handling media, or anyone. And so when the question of his immediate future arose at Friday’s media conference, he didn’t duck it. He started by saying that he was focusing on the grand final, and that every year, he had a discussion with the club chief executive and president. He would do the same again this post-season.

“But I honestly don’t know at this point in time whether I’ll keep going or not.” He added: “But I was like that last year and the year before.

“There’ll be a few more discussions about that, but it’s not the big issue.”

It’s not the big issue, in part, because Fagan doesn’t allow it to be so.

Leigh Matthews, with characteristic straight talk, had put the issue of Fagan’s future on the agenda on Fox Footy this week, speculating that this finale might be Fagan’s last game.

Matthews, who has dinner with Fagan every Wednesday during footy season, was wearing his hat as commentator, rather than as Brisbane Lions board member and confidant of the coach.

Lions chairman Andrew Wellington told this masthead that he expected Fagan to coach in 2027, as contracted. His manager James Henderson said: “We often talk about the future, always have. Our last D&M [deep and meaningful conversation] about this was at the start of July when he was excited as ever in his belief of this playing group.

“Since then, he’s been fully focused on getting Brisbane deep into September, and being in their fourth grand final in a row is a special achievement for everyone involved in the club.

“It’s well known that he reflects at the end of each season, and this year will be no different.”

Whether Fagan opts to continue in 2027 and either chase a fourth flag on end, or seek atonement for a second grand final defeat, his legacy in Brisbane – and impact on the AFL competition – is secure.

Fagan’s 10 years as senior coach have transformed not simply the Brisbane Lions, but the clubs’ conception of what matters in coaching, and the kind of people who can helm the headphones at AFL clubs.

Fagan defies the typical template of an AFL senior coach on multiple levels.

At a time when “young” coaches are fashionable – albeit Josh Fraser is 44 and most candidates are in their roaring 40s – Fagan is 65, the oldest in the competition. He is the only AFL senior coach who didn’t play at the highest level (he was an excellent footballer in Tasmania’s state leagues).

When hired by the Lions, at the recommendation of then AFL football boss Mark Evans, who’d worked with “Fages” at Melbourne alongside Neale Daniher and at Hawthorn in their four-flag dynasty, he had been working as Hawthorn’s football operations chief and had not “coached” per se for several years.

Current AFL football boss Greg Swann, then CEO at the Lions, and ex-Hawthorn coach and Lions list manager Peter Schwab, had met with Fagan to ascertain his interest. Schwab had wondered if Fagan was genuinely interested in coaching.

After a three-hour meeting, they had their answer.

Lions chairman Wellington, then on the board, said although there were many factors behind the Brisbane turnaround, “the decision to appoint Chris … I think is the most significant of all the various factors.”

At the urging of Daniher, for whom Fagan had served as right-hand man for most of their Demon days, Essendon had sounded out Fagan for their senior coaching role at the end of 2015. The Dons would opt for the safe hands of John Worsfold to lead them through the imminent crisis of mass suspensions.

Fagan’s success has re-defined the role of senior coach as one that is less reliant on tactical advances than on the more crucial management of players, culture and staff.

In a time when Michael Voss has been discarded by a second club, James Hird’s attempt to return to Essendon has been scuppered, and Nathan Buckley is retooling at Geelong in the hope of a second coming, Fagan has underscored that senior coaches need not be Alpha male ex-AFL captains, or even ex-AFL players, that teaching backgrounds are helpful (he was a teacher) and that relationships with players is the foundation of success.

North Melbourne’s unsparing assessment of Alastair Clarkson at that notorious August media conference was marked by the hierarchy’s wish for a “modern coach” who could teach the modern game, and for the suggestion that Clarkson had communication issues with North’s young list.

Therein lies another Fagan-ism that contradicts the perceived template for 2026 coaches: the oldest coach is among the best at connecting with Gen-Z footballers.

How does Fagan, 65 and a grandfather, bond with and extract commitment from players who are younger than his children?

“I think you just be open-minded and trust people,” said Wellington, likening Fagan’s perceptive insights into people to that of Matthews.

“He doesn’t go out and get on the beers with them, or do those sort of things to connect … This might sound a bit cliched, but he genuinely cares about them and you can’t fake that.

“He genuinely cares about every one of them, and they know that, and you can’t underestimate that.”

Evans felt Fagan’s management method was based on reciprocal loyalty: “The amount of time he invests in them shows them great loyalty and the result is that they are incredibly loyal to him,” he said.

“I’m talking even go back to David Neitz and or Russell Robertson and all the players at Melbourne, and I see it in the way it comes out of his coaching and leadership at Brisbane.”

Fagan’s stunning success at the Lions has coincided with two overlapping upheavals in his professional life and/or the club’s.

First was the Hawthorn racism saga, in which he was accused, and then fully cleared, of mistreatment of First Nations players – an episode that ended at the Human Rights Commission and for which Clarkson carried the heaviest burden and fallout.

It is remarkable to consider that since that story detonated in grand final week four years ago, the Lions have won two flags, been within a kick of a third, and have a fourth opportunity this weekend.

“Being in Brisbane, with a team that was becoming more competitive all the time, probably held him together during the Hawthorn matter,” said Henderson, who also manages Clarkson. “Family, close friends and the football club were the constant he needed, and the tyranny of distance to the unrelenting Melbourne media gave him some space.

“There were some very dark times though … but he has come through the other side, with his reputation and legacy fully intact.”

Wellington felt that Fagan’s wife Ursula had been crucial in that period, as had football lieutenant Danny Daly, Matthews, Henderson and Swann.

“That probably reflects his resilience, and I probably think there’s a bit to be said about the resilience of the people around him,” Wellington said.

The other landmine arose just before the 2026 season, when Lachie Neale’s marriage separation – and the salacious details of what led the champion’s break-up – created a drama that has been background music for the Lions throughout the year.

Nor has the club been distracted by Neale’s courtship of rival clubs and choice of Collingwood – Fagan and others at the club having questioned why the dual Brownlow medallist would want to play in Melbourne, not Perth where Jules Neale had moved with their young children.

Fagan’s enduring legacy might well be his enduring strength: that coaching footy, whether in the juniors and local levels he coached in his native Tasmania or in the AFL, is about relationships, and the best coaches – Fagan having ascended to that station – handle people better than others.

“If you just watch Fox Footy, and this is not a big criticism on those guys, I mean they need to comment on the game, but you might fall into the trap of thinking coaching is 80 per cent of you do game day,” said Wellington. “I would say … coaching is 80 to 90 per cent not game day, and then game day is your 10 to 20 per cent.”

Too old. Never played in the VFL/AFL. Not a tactician like others. Flags, bar the 2016 Dogs miracle, aren’t won from the elimination final – Fagan dispelled all those outdated shibboleths.

He survived and thrived despite the racism saga. Neale’s dramas? No problem.

Should the Lions win, Fagan will emulate two men who have been at his shoulder, Matthews and Clarkson, as the only coaches to complete three-peats this century. True to his modest, low-key ways, he answered the questions about his uncertain future on Friday, and then downplayed the importance of that topic before a grand final.

“We’ve got to play a game tomorrow.”

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