Brisbane Lions great Simon Black says coach Chris Fagan’s key strength is player relationships
Lions great Simon Black had heard stories, but upon joining the hunt for Brisbane’s next coach he wanted to see it for himself. And it didn’t take long for Chris Fagan to leave his impression.
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Simon Black knew straight away, Chris Fagan was the man to coach Brisbane.
The Lions’ legend was on the panel that interviewed potential coaches after the departure of Justin Leppitsch at the end of 2016.
Black understood the game of football inside and out after a stellar career that ended with a club record 322 games, Brownlow and Norm Smith medals, three club championships and three All Australian blazers.
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But it wasn’t just Fagan’s proposed tactics he was planning to scrutinise at that first meeting — he was also looking closely at the person.
CEO Greg Swann, who was also on the panel, reckons the door had barely swung shut behind Fagan when Black said “he’s your man.’’
“We were all thinking it but Blackie was the first to say it, he was really strong on it,’’ he said.
Brisbane was a wounded footy club, there wasn’t a whole lot of confidence or optimism within the players or staff.
In Fagan, Black saw someone who could fix that.
“I had heard relationships were his strengths and when I met him I could sense that immediately,’’ he said.
“It has never been more important to be able to build relationships, he gets the buy-in from his players and staff because he gives so much of himself.
“He is the sort of coach you would love to play under.’’
The best mate act won’t win you much more than a popularity contest in footy and Black has watched with interest over Fagan’s first three seasons at the Lions to see how he would go about delivering the home truths clearly needed to a side that had finished 15th, 17th and 17th in the years preceding his arrival.
“He has got a hard edge which you need but I don’t think he is the sort of guy who would ever lose a playing group because he has great understanding and great empathy for how hard the game is to play at the highest level,’’ he said.
“He appreciates the challenges they face understands and that shapes his expectations.
“And then he backs them in and builds them up to meet those expectations.
“It is the same with his staff too, everyone is given every chance and encouragement to be the best they can.
“I would say he is the prototype of the modern coach really.’’
Fagan has been around football all his life.
His journey to the Gabba began at Queenstown on Tasmania’s rugged west coast. It’s a sleepy town of about 1900 people, best known for its infamous gravel oval.
His dad Austin was a footy coach and the bug struck Chris from an early age. Mum Beth reckons he even slept with his footy as a kid and was soon playing seniors while still in school.
He went on to play 263 senior games in Tasmania, won premierships for Hobart and Sandy Bay, represented the Apple Isle 11 times before coaching at Sandy Bay and then the Tassie Mariners TAC Cup side on his way to being inducted into the Tasmanian Football Hall of Fame.
Fagan is a qualified schoolteacher but his dream was to forge a career in football and that meant crossing to the mainland.
It was Neale Daniher who gave him his start in the AFL in 1999 and the pair went on to spend nine years together at the Demons, taking the side to a losing grand final in 2000, and forming a firm friendship that lasts to this day.
Fagan credits Daniher with having the biggest influence on his life outside his parents and said it was “The Reverend’s” urging that convinced him to throw his hat into the ring with Brisbane.
But before that, he would serve and succeed in just about every position within a football department over an 18-year apprenticeship.
Suns CEO Mark Evans also worked with Fagan at Melbourne and says he was immediately impressed with how he approached the difficult coaching the club’s reserves team.
“He had top-up players coming and going from outside the club to make up the list or veterans dropping back on the comeback from injury and he had this amazing ability to gel people together and help them build towards something,’’ he said.
But it was the support he provided Daniher that would place him on the Hawthorn’s radar.
Evans had found his way to Hawthorn as footy manager and it was he, along with premiership legend Jason Dunstall and Alastair Clarkson, who went after Fagan as a mentor for their young coach.
“I think he inspires loyalty by giving loyalty in the first place. He is not afraid to tell people what he really thinks but he will do it in a way that buys them into the solution,’’ Evans said.
It was during the highly successful stint at the Hawks where Fagan formed one of the other significant footballing partnerships of his life with four time premiership star Luke Hodge.
The next stop on Evans’ career path was football operations boss at the AFL and it was there that he suggested to Swann that his old colleague might be able to help the Lions.
Swann has no qualms declaring Fagan did not just rebuild a broken footy side, he reversed the fortunes of the entire club.
A key was luring his old mate Hodge out of retirement.
“What you see is what you get with Fages and I don’t think that is normally the case with a lot of people,’’ Hodge said.
“Most people’s impression of him is as a passionate, loyal bloke and that is what he is.
“In this industry so many people are so focused on their role they lose touch with people but that never happens with Fages.
“I know whenever I talk to my old team mates at Hawthorn they’ll always say I was talking to Fages the other day.
“That’s Fages, people matter to him.’’
When Fagan first arrived in Brisbane I travelled to Launceston with the team on a training camp to do a feature on the new coach.
It was there that I asked Beth what impact her son would have as a coach.
“I think he will instil confidence in those kids; they will believe in him and they will believe in themselves, that is what he will do,” she said.
Three years on her words have proven to be prophetic.
Originally published as Brisbane Lions great Simon Black says coach Chris Fagan’s key strength is player relationships