Join now and get your first month for just $1.<\/a><\/p>\nFagan polled 305 votes, 60 ahead of second placed Scott (245) and more than double that of third-placed Nicks (128) who lifted the Crows from 15th on the ladder to minor premiers.<\/p>\n
WHAT’S GAMBLING REALLY COSTING YOU? Set a deposit limit. For Free and confidential support call 1800 858 858 or visit gamblinghelponline.org.au.<\/p>\n
Brisbane started their premiership defence with a bang, losing only one of their first nine games.<\/p>\n
But three losses in the next five games saw the Lions slip from their stronghold at the top of the table.<\/p>\n
Fagan was able to lead Brisbane to a 16-win season which put them into the top four \u2013 and the prized double chance.<\/p>\n
Finals wins over Gold Coast and Collingwood has ensured the Lions head into their third straight grand final in a remarkable run of success for Fagan.<\/p>\n
Rowell defends Brownlow voting system | 02:23<\/p>\n
\u201cI feel proud,\u201d Fagan said on AFL360 after claiming his third coaching crown.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot so much for me, but for our entire football department \u2013 the coaching of an AFL team is not done by one person.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s so many people that contribute \u2013 I feel like this award is recognition of the work a lot of people do, not just the senior coach.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think as a head coach, you\u2019ve got to be a good generalist. The key is the people that you have around you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fagan credited his background as a schoolteacher with his ability to connect with his Lions players.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne of the things you do straight away with the classes you have is try to build a relationship with every student you have in the class and I don\u2019t see that it\u2019s any different when it comes to coaching,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou get to know them as people, spend time with them, invest in them, help them when they\u2019re struggling a little bit.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that people of all ages respect that and enjoy that, and respond to that way of doing things. That\u2019s always been my way \u2013 I don\u2019t know whether it\u2019s the right way or not, but it\u2019s how I\u2019ve always operated.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think I\u2019m any sort of expert \u2013 I never pretend to be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Coach Chris Fagan at Lions training.Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n
And the Lions mentor opened up on the big calls he and the selection committee will face for this weekend\u2019s grand final with both Lachie Neale and Jarrod Berry pushing their returns from injury.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo (Neale) trained today. It wasn\u2019t a heavy session but he did everything and he did it at a much higher speed than probably everyone else did because they\u2019re still trying to recover from Saturday night,\u201d he shared.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve obviously got our main training session on Thursday in Melbourne so I\u2019ve spoken to Lachie and said \u2018well mate you\u2019ve got to train flat out \u2013 there\u2019s no holding back. We\u2019ll just see how you pull up from that\u2019 and we\u2019ll make a decision from there with the medical staff and myself and see which way we go.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the medical staff and our fitness people give him the tick off, then I\u2019m going to back them in.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019ll need to get through training on Thursday. He did a very, very hard session on the weekend which our medical and fitness people were really impressed with. He moved well today and I think Lachie expects that he\u2019s going to be right to go but we\u2019ll still wait and see.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he knows what\u2019s at stake. He\u2019s not taking this decision lightly. I\u2019m confident with that aspect of it.<\/p>\n
\u201cJarrod Berry trained today \u2013 he\u2019s desperate to make himself available.<\/p>\n
Dillon admits Brownlow ‘progress’ needed | 02:09<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll let him train on Thursday and we\u2019ll see how he is. The difficult part about that is it\u2019s now popped out twice and the second time around there\u2019s always a bit more damage done.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it will be a big call to include Jarrod, but I\u2019m going to give him the opportunity to show what he can do on Thursday. More for his own peace of mind I think.\u201d<\/p>\n
Capping off a brilliant awards haul, Fagan was also named as winner of the 2025 Neale Daniher AFL Coaches Association Lifetime award.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s fitting given Daniher was the man who gave Fagan his first AFL coaching job in 1998 at the Melbourne Football Club.<\/p>\n
COACH OF THE YEAR<\/p>\n
2025 Chris Fagan<\/p>\n
2024 Chris Fagan<\/p>\n
2023 Adam Kingsley<\/p>\n
2022 Craig McRae<\/p>\n
2021 Simon Goodwin<\/p>\n
2020 Ken Hinkley<\/p>\n
2019 Chris Fagan<\/p>\n
OTHER AWARD WINNERS<\/p>\n
For the 12th time, Gerard Whateley has won the AFLCA Media Award.<\/p>\n
Named the winner by Fagan on AFL 360, the Lions coach said it was a remarkable effort to claim 12 titles.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re obviously well trusted and well regarded by the coaching fraternity,\u201d he praised.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s a credit to you!<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve done it 12 times \u2013 that\u2019s an amazing effort.\u201d<\/p>\n
AFL Coaches Association Assistant Coach of the Year: Cameron Bruce (Brisbane)<\/p>\n
AFL Coaches Association Development Coach of the Year: David Mackay (Hawthorn)<\/p>\n
AFL Coaches Association Career and Education Award: Murray Davis (Adelaide)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brisbane premiership coach Chris Fagan has taken out the 2025 Monjon Allan Jeans Senior Coach of the Year…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163308,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[107826,63,689,107828,107825,3237,3244,12923,107824,107827,10133,107820,106613,93800,2105,2485,11288,40742,43,107821,33693,25875,36862,16712,647,106611,44,677,52768,107823,701,107822,41,39,42,40,660],"class_list":["post-163307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-alistair-nicholson","tag-australia","tag-australia-and-new-zealand","tag-award-winners","tag-back-to-back-crowns","tag-brisbane-lions","tag-chris-fagan","tag-chris-scott","tag-coaching-fraternity","tag-coaching-profession","tag-collingwood-magpies","tag-cricket-ground","tag-day-coverage","tag-finals-wins","tag-getty-images-inc","tag-gold-coast","tag-grand-final","tag-harris-andrews","tag-headlines","tag-inspiring-leader","tag-james-wiltshire","tag-lachie-neale","tag-logan-morris","tag-matthew-nicks","tag-melbourne","tag-neale-amp-berry","tag-news","tag-oceania","tag-premiership-defence","tag-prized-double-chance","tag-queensland","tag-second-straight-season","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-victoria"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}