A disease has crept into the Lions’ den. Can Fagan and his men find the cure in time? |
A disease has crept into the Lions’ den. Can Fagan and his men find the cure in time?
June 6, 2026 — 5:00am
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More than two years have passed since Chris Fagan entered a Q-Clash believing he might be coaching the Brisbane Lions for the last time.
The emotional toll from the Hawthorn racism allegations still weighed heavily and that, compounded with a cancer scare, created a doom-laden backdrop for a coach whose side had lost the 2023 grand final by four points and was sitting at 2-5 in early May the following season.
History relates that club bosses Andrew Wellington and Greg Swann went to Fagan’s house the morning after the Lions had defeated the Suns following a tip-off from club doctor Paul McConnell that the coach was seriously struggling.
Fagan had told his wife Ursula and his manager James Henderson that he was thinking of walking away from the Lions. The heavy injury toll suffered during the Gold Coast game, combined with a truthful and cathartic session with Wellington and Swann, changed his mind.
Two days after the Lions’ 2024 premiership, Fagan – in an understatement perhaps punctuated by the ultimate victory – said of that pivotal Q-Clash: “It was a great win, but it wasn’t a great day for the club, and they didn’t need me having a sook”.
Two seasons later, Fagan heads into another Gold Coast game again under a mid-season cloud.
The injury toll this time around is at crisis levels, but what is equally perplexing as the dual premiership coach attempts to steer his team into Brisbane’s eighth straight finals series has been the absence of characteristics that have shaped the club’s DNA during the Fagan ascendancy.
Both Fagan premierships came after the club had looked in serious trouble in June and both required the team to contest three games leading into the grand final with no week’s break.
And yet, this time around, the problems are different and more concerning. Not so much in the long term, given the club’s sound list management boosted by some prodigious father-sons and academy picks. But the outlook for 2026 is more concerning, given the stated aim at the start of the Fagan-Swann-David Noble regime in late 2016 to emulate the Geelong and Sydney models by making finals (almost) every year.
And yet even Chris Scott’s formidable era has never seen the Cats win successive flags. In recent weeks, Fagan has hinted at the fatigue brought on by........