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‘Sometimes you think is it all worth it’ | 01:16
Josh Dunkley described it as the flattest he’d ever felt after a game. And despite Chris Fagan’s public press conference optimism, behind the scenes he was contemplating walking away from his coaching post.
Watch the Brisbane Lions Grand Final re-call, ‘Dancing On The Ice’, from 8.30pm on Tuesday night on Fox Footy (Channel 504 on Foxtel and Kayo Sports). Get your first month for just $1. Limited-time offer.
On Anzac Day 2024 – just over five months prior to its triumphant AFL Grand Final victory – Brisbane suffered a humiliating 54-point loss to the Giants at Manuka Oval.
It meant the 2023 runners-up had slumped to 13th on the AFL ladder with a 2-5 record.
Speaking on Fox Footy’s Dancing On Thin Ice – a documentary on the Lions’ 2024 premiership journey, which will air on Tuesday night – Dunkley sensed the enormity of his club’s plight.
“That game was the flattest I’ve ever been after a game of footy, just because we knew as a group what we were going to cop,” Dunkley said on Dancing On Thin Ice.
“For us to be in that position at that time of the year after the year before – making a Grand Final and losing it – was tough and one of the hardest moments of the year.”
Fagan told reporters after the match he didn’t plan to “sit here and bag the team” and that the “way forward is together, that’s how we became a good team in the first place”. While Lions players appreciated the support, Fagan’s positive slant drew criticism from some pundits considering the Lions’ sharp decline across the first two months of the season.
But the reality was Fagan was seriously considering taking time away from the club.
On top of Brisbane’s on-field struggles, Fagan was not only still caught up in the aftershock of the Hawthorn racism allegations, but he’d experienced a health scare where he underwent tests for both prostate and bladder cancer.
After the Giants loss, Brisbane’s next game was against Gold Coast on a Sunday night in early May – and he went into that game considering taking a break from coaching.
The Lions produced a courageous win amid serious adversity, with Lincoln McCarthy, Darcy Gardiner and Noah Answerth all copping serious in-game injuries and Brandon Starcevich being a late withdrawal. Dunkley said after seeing so many teammates go down with injury, “for me it was personal on the night”.
Fagan’s mind had quickly changed.
“Yeah, there was a bit going on in my life,” Fagan said in the Fox Footy documentary. “But by about the halfway mark of the second quarter when we’d lost two blokes with ACLs, any thoughts of having some time off had gone out of mind. I thought ‘this is not the right time to do it’,” he said.
“It (taking a break) was going through my mind. We hadn’t started the season well, I’d had the Human Rights Commission thing going on with Hawthorn, a little bit of a health scare (with a potential cancer diagnosis).
“Sometimes you wake up and think: ‘Is it all worth it, putting yourself under that pressure?’
“I’m glad I didn’t do it.”
The day after the win over the Suns, members of Brisbane’s hierarchy – who’d gotten wind of Fagan’s personal struggles – visited Fagan at his house.
“‘Swanny’ (chief executive Greg Swann) and our president Andrew Wellington, Phil Smyth was there, Danny Daly – they lobbed around to my place the next day and had a bit of a talk with me,” Fagan said.
“It’s funny in life, when you share your thoughts and problems with somebody else, suddenly they don’t feel as bad – and I knew I had the support of the footy club. That’s sort of all I needed.
“So I said: ‘I’m not stopping boys, I’m going to keep going and I’ll let you know if I need a break.’ So that’s how it worked out.”
And it worked out well.
RIGHT TIME FOR THE BYE
Dancing On Thin Ice documents an incredible tale of Brisbane resilience, which saw the Lions overcome a sluggish start to the season and an array of key injuries to win their first flag in 21 years.
Their mid-season bye came at a great time. The Lions still sat 13th on the ladder, but the belief and optimism among the group had increased.
Fagan famously nominated ‘Dancing On Thin Ice’ as the Lions’ theme for the rest of the season. They went on a nine-game winning streak on their way to a remarkable premiership.
“I think I wrote it (the theme) up on the board at the club and I said: ‘What do you think this means boys?’ We had a bit of a chat about that and I said: ‘That’s how we’re going to play our footy for the rest of the year,’” Fagan said.
“I think I even showed them some vision of some bloke skating on thin ice and the ice cracking behind him – and he didn’t stop. We embraced it, I embraced it and we went forward.”
Lions co-captain Harris Andrews said Fagan’s theme helped release the shackles for some players.
“There were probably times throughout the first half of the season where we played safe, so that saying of ‘we may as well dance on thin ice’ – that resonated with a lot of the guys and probably took away from some of the hesitation and just playing on a little bit more instinct,” he said.
Another key turning point at that time of the year was when senior players, including Dayne Zorko, Ryan Lester and Joe Daniher, began meeting regularly for coffee on a Tuesday morning and discussing what they could do to help the team flip the script.
“We sat down as three older players in the group and spoke about what we could offer and what we could do. And the first thing Joe said is: ‘Why don’t we just let the young kids have a go, hey?’” Zorko said with a laugh. “Instantly me and Ryan shut him down pretty quickly and said ‘no we’re not out of this’!
“But for us, that was a massive turning point for us three as well. We understood our importance to the group and what we could actually do to help and guide and get us out of this rut.”
THE STREAK
The Lions between Rounds 13 and 21 won nine straight matches by an average margin of 32 points, subsequently surging into second spot on the ladder.
Fagan said at the halfway mark he thought his Lions “were good enough to maybe get into the eight, but I didn’t think we’d win nine in a row”.
Lions star Cam Rayner said his teammates “were literally having fun as if we were playing Under 14s footy again”, while Dunkley claimed Fagan’s positive outlook all season was critical.
“We could’ve gone either way at the midway point,” he said.
“The Hawthorn game, we had a leadership meeting and we’re all looking at each other going ‘what do we do?’ And Fages was one of the only guys in the whole footy club I reckon that was so positive. We had a meeting, showed us the stats and if we weren’t as good as last year, we were better in those areas.
“It gave us so much belief heading into the second half of the season that we could beat anyone.”
The other confidence booster for the Lions was the return of young star Will Ashcroft, who played his first game back from an ACL rupture against Melbourne in Round 16 on his way to a Norm Smith medal on grand Final day.
Ashcroft joked he was pushing Fagan to put him back in the AFL side as soon as the pre-season.
Fagan added: “The conversation was around whether he would come straight back into the AFL team or if he needs a couple of games in the reserves to find his confidence. Will reassured me he didn’t need any games in the reserves.
“I remember talking to Leigh Matthews about it, debating it at one of our dinners during the week. He said: ‘Well he’s a pretty talented young player. If you show some faith in him, at some point he might pay you back.’ And he won the Norm Smith medal, so it’s a fair payback, isn’t it?
“I remember sending Leigh a text a week after the Grand Final telling him what a genius he was for saying those words.”
THE LATE-SEASON HICCUP
Seemingly humming towards a top-four berth, the Lions hit a hurdle during the final home and away rounds, losing close games to the Giants and Magpies. Ultimately, it cost the Lions the double chance in the finals.
The one-point Round 23 loss to Collingwood was a particularly bitter pill to swallow, considering Brisbane led by 31 points late in the first quarter and by 18 points deep into the fourth term, only for the Pies to kick the final three goals of the game to steal victory.
Audio of co-captain Lachie Neale’s address features on Dancing On Thin Ice.
“Hey, we don’t turn on each other here,” Neale said to his teammates on the MCG. “We stick together this whole way.
“That was a hell of a battle, but heads up, alright? No heads down. We’ve got one more and then we’re playing finals, alright? Be disappointed, but chins up alright? We’re a good team.”
Zorko claimed the two late-season losses might’ve been a blessing in disguise for his side.
“I think if we don’t lose those two games to GWS and Collingwood and give ourselves reminders of how we need to apply ourselves to for a full game, I don’t think we win the premiership,” he said.
“The mind shift, it just changed significantly around the club. I can’t put exactly what it was, but it sharpened us up so much, those two losses.”
Andrews also revealed a rare team meeting contribution from ruck Oscar McInerney also lifted the spirits of the team.
“‘Big O’ talked about it. He’s a pretty quiet guy around the club and he sort of leads by his actions, but he spoke up in our team meeting about giving yourself to the team,” Andrews said.
“It was like: ‘Righto, we’re not going to let this bloke down because he’s a warhorse for our football club.’
“From that point forward, we were like: ‘If we were going to do anything, let’s just continue to give ourselves to the team.”
THE EPIC FINALS RUN
After finishing in fifth spot, Brisbane annihilated Carlton in the first elimination final, defeating Carlton by 28 points in a game where it led 60-0 at one stage.
The Lions then met the Giants in a semi-final at ENGIE Stadium – and it looked grim for Fagan’s men at one stage, trailing by 44 points midway through the third term.
But Brisbane conjured one of the most remarkable comebacks seen in a final, kicking 11 of the last 14 goals of the game – including six unanswered majors in the fourth term – to record an unforgettable five-point win.
The usually-calm Fagan couldn’t contain his excitement, running over to travelling Lions fans on the wing to celebrate with them.
“I wasn’t sure if it was Kai Lohmann or Chris Fagan!” Andrews said with a laugh.
“But it fired the boys up seeing Fages, because he’s usually pretty calm after a win. To see that emotion come out then, we were pretty geed up going into the rooms.”
Daniher was the hero, slotting two tough, clutch goals – including one from the boundary line on the wrong side for a left-footer – deep in the final term to seal victory.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Andrews said. “He had Cam (Rayner) and Lachie (Neale) there – right-footers ready to roll out on the outside – and I was on the other side of the ground thinking: ‘What is this bloke doing?’”
Daniher, ultimately, would retire after the Lions’ premiership win.
“There’s a fair chance in the back of his mind he knew if he doesn’t kick those goals he’s probably finishing playing football,” Rayner said of Daniher.
“To put that into context, it’s probably two of the best kicks you’ll ever see.”
The Lions then pulled off another epic win in the preliminary final against Geelong.
They came from 25 points behind in the third term and kicked the last two goals of the game to win by 10 points and qualify for their second straight Grand Final.
“You talk about moments and the way that our year transpired. In that moment there and then, we had a decision,” Dunkley said. “We could’ve either gone ‘we’re done’ or ‘let’s give ourselves another opportunity’.
“The confidence we’d gained from all the games prior was that we could pile on goals and, sure enough, the two boys sitting here (Rayner and Cal Ah Chee) kicked two and we were back in front again.”
And for Zorko, the 60-point Grand Final triumph over Sydney was the culmination of a long build that required ample patience and persistence.
“It was just an unbelievable feeling amongst the group, I can’t put words to it,” he said. “Like it was just going to be ours.
“We prepared so well – but then Saturday morning and saw everyone walking to the MCG and I’m sh*tting myself.
“I look back at (the 2023) Grand Final and I don’t remember a thing. But this year (2024) it was all so clear. The clarity behind everything that needed to be done, the day itself – I reckon I could nearly replay it for you play by play – it was such a calmness amongst this group that it propelled us to play one of the more perfect games of football you could ever ask for.”
One of the lasting images from the post-match celebrations was Fagan cuddling the legendary Leigh Matthews and shedding a tear.
“In my eight years here, he (Matthews) has been such a good friend and mentor and adviser,” Fagan said.
“I wasn’t really expecting to see Leigh out there and I just did and it just happened.
“He’s always been positive about me and my coaching and felt like I had the capacity to help the team win a premiership. When I saw him there, he reinforced that.
“It brought a bit of a tear to my eye for a brief moment there and then I grinned and got on with it.”
Watch the Brisbane Lions Grand Final re-call, ‘Dancing On The Ice’, from 8.30pm on Tuesday night on Fox Footy (Channel 504 on Foxtel and Kayo Sports)
