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SEN Breakfast

Brisbane coach Chris Fagan (27.04.26)

26 Apr 2026

Transcription

Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

0.47 - 1.588 Chris Fagan

Fireball.

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6.022 - 26.865 Kane Cornes

He's always good to us, the Brisbane coach, and they were a powerful performance yesterday for Power Bay. Power Bay delivers eco-friendly heat pumps, solar systems, and batteries to cut energy costs and support sustainability. Chris Fagan is the dual premiership coach of the Lions. He joins us on Fireball. Fagan, thanks for your time. Thanks, Cain. Good to be on the show.

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26.885 - 35.674 Kane Cornes

Did you ever just sit back and really enjoy one? I get the feeling that was the case yesterday. Not much could have gone any better.

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36.937 - 50.314 Chris Fagan

No, it was a good win yesterday. It was a good response after a disappointing day last week, more importantly. Yeah, I thought we could tell that we were on from the start and all parts of our game were working pretty well yesterday.

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50.434 - 60.266 Kane Cornes

So we were a hard team to beat. What's the cues for you when you say that you're on early? You're sitting on the interchange bench, you're standing as you do. How do you know when your group's on?

61.988 - 64.311 Chris Fagan

For us, it's always been about our pressure.

64.763 - 86.4 Chris Fagan

when we bring that we usually put in a good performance and I'm talking not just about the tackling pressure and stuff like that I'm talking about our team defence and our ability to stop the opposition from moving the ball in the way that they want to so our reaction time to defend all those sorts of things were much much better yesterday than they were last week

86.667 - 109.5 Kingy

Thanks. Congratulations on yesterday. They were awesome to watch, I've got to say. When they're in that frame of mind, it's just such a good spectacle for all of us. When you're challenging this group to try to motivate them, try to get them back to this performance, is that getting more... I mean, they've had success. Is it more difficult to get this sort of response week to week?

111.382 - 133.679 Chris Fagan

Well, at the moment, it doesn't seem so kingy. Obviously, Haven't had to sort of go hard at them all year until this week. So that's not too bad. Got to round seven without having to do that. So if you have to do it every seven weeks, that's not too bad. I reckon you can get through the season on that. They're a fairly driven group, I think.

Chapter 2: What indicators does Chris Fagan look for to know his team is 'on'?

195.163 - 199.207 Kingy

Is it lost on the footy public just how physical this group is?

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202.19 - 216.304 Chris Fagan

I don't know. I probably don't hear a lot of what gets said about our team, but I know that we're a hard, tough team. And what we're talking about there, and I think you're talking about the same, is how hard we are at the footy and how clean we are around it. And that's one of our great attributes.

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216.672 - 240.182 Kane Cornes

uh we work hard at it and we've got players who are gifted in that area as well it'd be fair to say so um no it's it's good to be able to coach a team that that has that reputation and it's something we want to want to keep i looked at your uh center bounce staff and matthew nicks alluded to this in his post-match press conference as well with five goals to zero out of center bounce how much work goes into that

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242.018 - 262.21 Chris Fagan

A fair bit. That group of midfielders have been together for a fair while now. Probably the new guy in there is Sammy Draper. He's added another dimension to it because he gets his hand on the ball so much in there. We're getting used to playing alongside him. Ben Hudson does a lot of good work with him and our other ruckmen at the club.

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263.111 - 284.092 Chris Fagan

Cam Booth, we practice centre bounce and stoppage on a regular basis. We see it as a strength of ours and we try to make it that every week. And last night, a lot of that hard work paid off. It's not often you hit five goals from centre bounce, but it was a big part of our win last night, that's for sure.

284.633 - 299.008 Kane Cornes

Just with Zach Bailey around seven now, usually sort of the halfway point is when we start to get a little bit worried if they remain unsigned. Did you give him a deadline? Have you thought about how you're going to handle this if it continues to drag on towards the end of the year or not?

299.866 - 318.006 Chris Fagan

Nah, generally speaking, we've not done that. I mean, Huey McCluggage, I think, was in the same boat last year. It might have been around the halfway mark of the year that he decided he was going to stay and re-sign. You know, the other two boys, Starcevic and R2, who left at the end of the year last year, we were having conversations with them.

318.046 - 338.717 Chris Fagan

Obviously, the longer the year goes on, the more you worry about it. We'd hate to lose Zach Bailey. He's a He's a fantastic player and, you know, he started his career with us and he's developed with us and we'd like to think that he could play his whole career with us. But the realities of AFL footy are that, you know, maybe he will and maybe he won't.

339.358 - 352.671 Chris Fagan

You know, people are motivated and driven by different things and sometimes the offers are too good to refuse. So we'll just see what happens in that space. But in the meantime, the main thing is that he's playing good footy for us at the moment. He was terrific last night.

Chapter 3: How does Chris Fagan motivate his players after a disappointing performance?

440.86 - 461.951 Chris Fagan

And Lincoln, he's a tough competitor. So playing in the back line sort of suits his personality. And the opportunity came up this week to give him a chance. It wasn't looking too good in the first quarter when Rankin had a couple. I thought he was going to take eight. But Lincoln did a great job. I was really pleased with him. And, you know, he uses the ball quite well. He's a really good tackler.

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461.992 - 466.358 Chris Fagan

And he can compete well on the air. So there might be a future for him there. Who knows?

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466.827 - 474.238 Kingy

Really good questions just came up on the text machine. So if I can ask it, Faggs, if you knew that Bailey was leaving, would you still play him?

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475.58 - 494.649 Chris Fagan

Absolutely, I would. We've got to be more mature about things than that. Like, okay, someone might think, well, if he's not going to be there next year, you're better off to play somebody who will. But no, I think you just take the view that, you know, Zach, you've been here for seven or eight years. The best thing you can do is play well for the rest of the year and leave the club on good terms.

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495.009 - 503.472 Chris Fagan

And... That's how I think about it. I mean, I hate the idea of anyone leaving, but that's just the reality. So be mature about it.

505.274 - 515.686 Kane Cornes

Good answer, I would have thought. Hey, how's your injury list looking? Are we expecting, like, two days around the mark? Eric Hipwood, got a couple that you'd still probably like to get back in pretty quickly?

516.768 - 537.469 Chris Fagan

Yeah, Jack Payne would be another one. So he probably won't. If he comes back, it won't be until... towards the end of the year Eric's around the middle of the year Tom's played a couple of games in the reserves now so it's been three years since he's played any football with any continuity so we're not expecting him to set the house on fire just yet but the good thing is he's playing

538.748 - 556.71 Kingy

So at the end of the game, get to Jordan Dawson, Faggs, and this game sometimes can take you down an emotional path as a fan, as a player, and obviously as a coach. Can you let us in a little bit on how that went and just, you know, what it meant to you to be able to do that?

558.012 - 573.207 Chris Fagan

Yeah, I sort of thought to myself before the game, win, lose or draw, that I just wanted to go and wish him well because, you know, when those sorts of tragedies happen and we've all been touched by that's in some way or another throughout our lives. Yeah, it's pretty tough.

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