Brisbane coach Chris Fagan opens up on his old life as a teacher and his hopes for future Lions success
Chris Fagan grew up in one of the most barren landscapes in Australia but this old school teacher is hoping to propel Brisbane into another golden era of success as he opens up about life and his friendship with Neale Daniher.
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Chris Fagan grew up in one of the most barren landscapes in Australia but he’s hoping to grow the Lions into an AFL premiership force.
Sunday Mail’s GRANTLEE KIEZA spoke to the Brisbane coach about his home state, his time at Hawthorn, his old career as a teacher, his vision for the Lions and more.
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GRANTLEE KIEZA: What are your earliest memories of Aussie rules?
CHRIS FAGAN: I started playing on a gravel oval in Queenstown in Tasmania, a mining town where the sulphur in the air destroyed all the trees. My dad, Austin, was an electrician at the mines and my mum, Beth, was a nurse at the local hospital. My dad was one of the better players on Tasmania’s West Coast and he coached successfully too. I used to trundle around with him to practice and to games, learning about footy and coaching at the same time.
GK: Queenstown has a very unusual landscape?
CF: I grew up in a world where there were no trees on the hills. It’s regarded as an environmental disaster but it was also so pretty at the same time. The sunsets around those barren hills were absolutely magnificent. The trees are starting to grow back, but a lot of people want it to remain the way it is because the landscape is a big attraction.
GK: How old were you when you left?
CF: I was 15. I wanted to do a teaching degree and I had to go to Hobart. I thought I was going down to be a boarder but my whole family moved there as well. I did two years at college to get my matriculation and then went to the University of Tasmania to get my teaching degree.
GK: Does being a teacher help you as a coach?
CF: It’s the same skill set. I still see myself as a teacher; I just work in a specific environment rather than a classroom. It’s all about developing a player’s character and helping them with their skill set.
GK: People say you have a paternal instinct in the way you take players under your wing?
CF: I want each of them to do as well as they can in life and in the game. Building a relationship with each of the players is an important part of the way I coach. If you have a good relationship then you have trust, and when you need to be really honest with a player, whether it’s a pat or the back or a change they have to make in their game, they accept the fact that you only want them to be as good as they can be.
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GK: When did you last teach class?
CF: In 1994 at Dominic College, Hobart.
GK: How is your vinyl record collection?
CF: I’ve got about 90 or 100 vinyl records. I got back into them because my daughters bought me a record player for Christmas. I started buying the records I had when I was young. Elton John probably gets more of a go than anyone else. Collecting records is a bit of fun and brings back happy memories. Now that people know I collect records, they are coming up to me and giving me old vinyls.
GK: You had a long-playing career — 263 games in the Tasmanian league. Did you want to play in Melbourne?
CF: That was every young boy’s dream. I had a practice match with Essendon in the late 70s in the days before the draft. They only had two of those a year so it was hard to get an opportunity but I was probably a bit too small and bit too slow, anyway.
GK: Why is there no AFL team in Tasmania?
CF: Fundamentally, Tasmania has never been seen by the AFL as a new market. Aussie rules is well entrenched there as opposed to say Brisbane or the Gold Coast or GWS or Sydney. They were seen as new markets to expand into. So probably for commercial reasons they haven’t put a new team into Tasmania but hopefully one day there will be a Tasmanian AFL team.
GK: You ruptured your hamstring at a charity event last year?
CF: I ripped the hamstring off the bone getting out of the ice bath at the “Freeze MND’’ event on behalf of Neale Daniher’s Motor Neurone Disease charity. Two days later I had to have the hamstring tendons reattached to the bone.
GK: You have a great relationship with Daniher?
CF: Along with my parents, Neale is the hero of my life. I can’t believe what he’s done in the face of adversity. I was at Melbourne as an assistant coach in 2000. The Grand Final was a disappointment because we got beaten up but the effort the team had getting there I’ll never forget. We were an average to above-average side but we played so well to make the Grand Final and it was a great testament to Neale’s coaching. All the work he’s doing fighting MND and the money he’s raising shows what a great person he is.
GK: You had a great run as an assistant coach at Hawthorn?
CF: It was a golden era. I was there for nine years and we made five Grand Finals and collected four flags. We had good coaching staff, good medical staff and the player group we had included a high number of leaders on the field who could take control of games and almost coach the team out on the oval — guys like Hodge, Lewis, Mitchell, Birchall, and Roughead. I think we had more leaders than other teams.
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GK: Buddy Franklin was a tower of strength there?
CF: Franklin is so agile for man of his size but he really worked so hard at his game; he always had a footy in his hands. He’s a humble guy too; as much as he is star player, he really doesn’t seek the limelight.
GK: Things were in disarray when you came to Brisbane?
CF: We had to get a sense of direction for everyone and I had to build relationships. I had to listen to the people there to find out what they story had been; what was good about the club and what wasn’t. I asked everyone if they were the coach what things they would focus on. You can’t build anything on your own. You have to get everyone on board.
We came up with a game plan to create a really stable environment where people feel they can improve and where they are safe to make mistakes. If you want to be a great team you have to fail sometimes on the way to the top. So long as you keep learning the lessons.
GK: The Lions had a phenomenal run in the early 2000s with a hat-trick of premierships. Will we ever see that again?
CF: I hope so, but I don’t think the competition really lends itself to long runs of premierships anymore. What Hawthorn did to win three in a row (2013-15) was phenomenal but we see the topsy-turvy nature of the competition more so now — the Bulldogs, Richmond and West Coast all win a flag. It’s going to be so much more difficult for any team to go back to back. Certainly, at Brisbane as the player group gets a bit older — because they are still fairly young — hopefully they can develop to the point where they are in the frame for that sort of opportunity and once you’re in that window of opportunity you’ve got to ride it as hard as you can.
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