Crash Craddock: Lessons Brisbane Broncos and Kevin Walters can take from Brisbane Lions and Chris Fagan

The qualities that make the Brisbane Lions so formidable are the same ones that have eluded the Broncos all year, which is why Kevin Walters needs to look to the man across the river and have a sit down with coach Chris Fagan, writes ROBERT CRADDOCK.

From Bennett to Bellamy and beyond, Kevin Walters has taken coaching tips from many deep wells … but what about the man across the river?

As in Chris Fagan, the suddenly buoyant coach of the Lions, a man with whom Walters shares several key traits and some polar differences.

It’s hard to believe if Walters sat down with Fagan for a coffee after the AFL grand final he would not come away with some wisdom which could be used in his season of reason.

The Broncos board will this week analyse the club’s season review and common sense will prevail.

Walters will not be sacked despite the team finishing 12th after a sorrowful end to the season and nor should he be.

After making last year’s grand final Walters at least deserves to start the season, particularly when there are staggeringly few genuine options to replace him.

Kevin Walters could do with a sit down with Chris Fagan. Picture: Liam Kidston

If you agree that approaching Craig Bellamy (for the fourth time) to rejoin Brisbane is a waste of time, who else – given Wayne Bennett is gone for good – even gets you mildly excited?

But you can’t hide the bleeding obvious.

After making the finals just once in four years the heat on Walters will be hotter than a tin roof in Darwin if the Broncos start next season badly.

Many of the elusive qualities the Broncos are searching for – playing for each other, week to week consistency, scrambling out of tight corners, trusting the process and overcoming the loss of key players through injury – are traits which are the hallmark of the Lions’ stunning progression to Saturday’s AFL grand final against the Sydney Swans.

The careers of Walters and Fagan have common threads in that they were unusually late starters as first grade coaches with Fagan launching his career with the Lions at 55 and Walters 53 when he took over the Broncos.

Chris Fagan’s Lions highlight all the traits the Broncos have been missing in 2024. Picture: Dylan Burns/AFL Photos via Getty Images

Both took over teams in distress and initially struggled with Fagan feeling pangs of self doubt when he won just five matches each winter in his first two seasons.

Walters won just seven in his first year.

Fagan struck gold by backing a group of youngsters he felt would grow from boys to men together under his nurturing hand and blossom as a tight unit.

It’s a deceptively daring, hard-to-achieve formula which is often tried but rarely works.

This time it did. But it wasn’t easy early.

“I was wondering whether it would work but I kept hearing people say you are better to stick with a plan than keep changing it,’’ Fagan once told this masthead.

“Fortunately we started to get going.’’

But Walters, trying to reconcile the past, plan for the future and shine in the present, found these three priorities bouncing off each other and at one time early in his tenure had seven different halves combinations in 14 matches.

That’s like a band trying to top the charts with a new leader singer every tour. Eventually he found the sweet spot by making last year’s grand final before this year’s recession.

Fagan, while having a distinguished playing career in Tasmania, did not have Walters big time playing pedigree but as a school teacher who hired other school teachers around him he made it a priority to connect with his players.

Some observers feel that no-nonsense Ben Te’o, the Broncos new assistant coach, could play a role similar to what David Noble used to under Fagan – the enforcer who tells the players things they may not want to hear but have to be told.

Every club needs one.