{"id":838720,"date":"2026-08-01T23:37:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T23:37:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/838720\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T23:37:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T23:37:11","slug":"afl-2026-chris-fagan-laments-brisbane-loss-to-carlton-defends-eric-hipwood-performance-in-defence-latest-news-highlights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/838720\/","title":{"rendered":"AFL 2026: Chris Fagan laments Brisbane loss to Carlton, defends Eric Hipwood performance in defence, latest news, highlights"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brisbane Lions coach Chris Fagan described his team\u2019s crushing 76-point loss to Carlton<\/a> on Saturday night at Marvel Stadium as his \u201cworst nightmare\u201d.<\/p>\n

Not only did the reigning back-to-back premiers get smashed in one of the upset results of the season, but finished the game with one fit player.<\/p>\n

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Key quartet Logan Morris (quad\/back), Hugh McCluggage (calf), Ryan Lester (shoulder) and Keidean Coleman (concussion) all failed to see out the game.<\/p>\n

Coleman will be unavailable for their top-four showdown against Hawthorn at the Gabba next round and the other three will be in varying degrees of doubt as well.<\/p>\n

Fagan wasn\u2019t thrilled about potentially making wholesale forced changes to the line-up so close to the finals.<\/p>\n

Blues stun the Lions | 02:36<\/p>\n

\u201cOur squad depth has been tested all year,\u201d Fagan said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had up to 15\/16 players out at different times. We were just getting some players back and now we seem to be back getting a few injuries.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this time of the year you\u2019re trying to get some solidarity and play each week with a similar line-up if you can so you can get good cohesion together.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo it\u2019s not ideal if you\u2019re changing your side a lot at this point in time.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The Lions have been hit particularly hard down back with Dayne Zorko (managed), Ty Gallop (suspension), Darcy Gardiner (hamstring) and Jack Payne (knee) all out and then Lester and Coleman injuring themselves during the match.<\/p>\n

The dearth in options forced Eric Hipwood to shift down back, with the 2024 premiership-winning forward looking out of his depth all game.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe looks vulnerable defensively \u2013 they\u2019re getting him on the lead, they\u2019re getting him with movement,\u201d David King said of Fox Footy during a torrid evening that saw Blues talls Brodie Kemp (five goals) and Harry McKay (20 disposals, three goals) feast in attack.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Hipwood back experiment is probably over at the end of this game,\u201d former Richmond dual Coleman Medallist Jack Riewoldt added.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have to find a different person to fill that hole.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eric Hipwood had a difficult evening in an unfamiliar role down back. (Photo by Graham Denholm\/AFL Photos via Getty Images)Source: Getty Images<\/p>\n

Hipwood also produced a terrible turnover out of defence to let the Blues in for a Will Hayward goal early in the second quarter.<\/p>\n

However, Fagan went into bat for the 28-year old, saying he wasn\u2019t to blame for the Blues\u2019 territory domination.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was more to the loss than that,\u201d Fagan said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEric Hipwood doesn\u2019t play in the midfield. We got beaten in the midfield tonight. We lost the supply battle and the backs were under the pump all night long.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a little hard when you don\u2019t play there every week, but we didn\u2019t have too many alternatives.\u201d<\/p>\n

In some better news for the Lions, Zorko and Gardiner should be available to face the Hawks.<\/p>\n

Get all the latest AFL news, highlights and analysis delivered straight to your inbox with Fox Sports Sportmail. Sign up now!!!<\/a><\/p>\n

But Fagan insisted he wasn\u2019t \u201cpanicking\u201d as a result of the heavy defeat and agreed his men would take confidence from the fact that they won seven matches in a row soon after suffering a similarly massive loss to GWS in Round 11.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis happens in footy sometimes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot what we wanted tonight; not ideal. But it\u2019s happened and we\u2019ve just got to respond now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brisbane Lions coach Chris Fagan described his team\u2019s crushing 76-point loss to Carlton on Saturday night at Marvel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":838721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-838720","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-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838720","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=838720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/838720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/838721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=838720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=838720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=838720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}