![\"Andrews](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/eb557bab6b655d2ba46463c023011ad4.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nBrisbane coach Chris Fagan says he’s a relieved man after watching his team secure a finals berth for a seventh straight year — and now he wants them to go chase a prized top-four berth.<\/p>\n
The Lions booked their spot for September with a crushing 57-point win over Fremantle in Perth on Friday night.<\/p>\n
The 15.11 (101) to 5.14 (44) win improved Brisbane’s record to 15-6-1 with just one more match to go – a tough fixture against Hawthorn at the Gabba next week.<\/p>\n
Brisbane’s finals hopes would have been on thin ice had they lost to Fremantle, and Fagan was thrilled with the win on enemy territory.<\/p>\n
“It’s a big relief,” Fagan said.<\/p>\n
“I was sitting in my hotel room today thinking, ‘if we lose tonight and we lose next week, we could miss finals having 14 wins and a draw – that’s unheard of’.<\/p>\n
“But it was just a relief to have that out of the way. And it allows us to plan a little bit forward.<\/p>\n
“This is our seventh year in a row that we’ve qualified for finals. That’s hard to do, particularly if you’re an interstate club because you’ve got to travel more and there’s a few more obstacles.”<\/p>\n
Brisbane won the flag from fifth place last year.<\/p>\n
Fagan would love to see the Lions secure a double chance by finishing in the top-four this time around.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Harris Andrews celebrating the Lions’ victory. (James Worsfold\/AAP PHOTOS)<\/p>\n
“I’m sure it’ll drive the group – that desire to finish top-four,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I mean, there’s probably 1001 different ways the ladder could end up next week, but we’re in control of our own destiny.”<\/p>\n
Brisbane have won 17 of their past 21 games away from home – a remarkable feat.<\/p>\n
“So we just should travel somewhere and play next week, to be honest,” Fagan quipped.<\/p>\n
One major downer to come out of Friday’s win was a dislocated shoulder to midfielder Jarrod Berry.<\/p>\n
Berry’s left shoulder popped out when he was bowled over by Andrew Brayshaw in the final quarter, and it remains to be seen whether it will be a season-ending injury.<\/p>\n
“His other shoulder is the one he’s had operated on … so now the other one’s popped out,” Fagan said.<\/p>\n
“I don’t know the full extent. Obviously, there’ll be scans and stuff like that.<\/p>\n
“It didn’t look good. But sometimes they can find a way to strap them up and get them through the season and have an operation at the end of the year.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brisbane coach Chris Fagan says he’s a relieved man after watching his team secure a finals berth for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70842,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,651,3244,85,7709],"class_list":["post-70841","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-brisbane","tag-chris-fagan","tag-sports","tag-the-lions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70841","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=70841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}