After watching the Grand Final on Saturday, it proved to me what I have been trying to allude to for a while. 

On Saturday, Chris Fagan and the Brisbane Lions categorically illustrated that it makes no difference where you start a season but how you finish it.  Brisbane Lions had a poor start to the season, languishing in the 13th spot. They then, with determination and passion not only for each other but also for the coach, finished not in the top 4 but 5th.

To then play every finals game, come out and literally demolish what was considered to be a team that just could not lose on a day that mattered most was a testament to the culture and what Chris Fagan and the club were building.  Carlton, in my view, is in the same situation, but what we have gone through in the past ten years should and must fuel the team and club even more.

Chris Fagan went through heartache after heartache for the past six years. Getting into the finals, then getting beaten, then getting into a Grand Final in 2023, getting beaten, lit a fire in the club that culminated in the eventual thrashing of its opponent that no one saw coming in 2024. Seeing Fagan’s emotion as he hugged Lee Mathews was one of the game’s highlights.  It took Brisbane Lions six years, repeat six years, to win the penultimate prize.  Yet, for some Carlton supporters, it should only take a few years, three at the most. 

I am under no illusion of where Carlton stands right now and what it is building.  The past ten years, in which we have gone through five coaches in that time, will never, repeat, never allow a club to become close to being successful. We have been in two finals campaigns in the three years that Michael Voss has been at the helm.  If, after all of this, you still think and believe that we are not building towards becoming successful, then you are not really understanding the modern game and where, as a club, we have been and where we are now.

The expectation from some supporters that we have not won a Premiership since 1995 and that we should have won at least one since that time perplexes me, and I have to ask: why? Why should the club be successful if it keeps changing coaches every time after a few years when things don’t work out the way it assumed they should? Why do some believe that after three years, we should be holding up another Premiership Cup when we have not earned it? If this is what you think, then you have not understood the ramifications of what happens when there are continuous changes at the club in terms of its senior coach. Under what rationale does anyone believe that this is possible? 

John Longmire has been the coach for over ten years, and in that time, Sydney was in the finals for the majority of that period, yet he only won one Premiership.  Chris Fagan has finally won a Premiership for the Brisbane Lions, but it took him a long time to get there. It took him time to get the team the players it needed. It took time for those players to know not only their role in the team but how to overcome setbacks, injuries and demoralising close losses. 

I have read comments from those who profess their love for the club to want to see Vossy sacked.  That he just cannot coach.  If Brisbane Lion’s win shows anything, consistency is one word that permeates a successful club’s culture, not only in the players but in the club itself. 

During the season, the Brisbane Lions had one of the worst kicks at goal, where their scores for points outweighed a goal.  But they never faltered in what they wanted and how they tried to get there. Chris Fagan said before the match that after last year’s loss in the Grand Final, he got the players to write how they felt and what they could do better.  He put those answers in a time capsule, and then, this season, he took them out and read them to the players.  He showed a team struggling for the first part of the season what should fuel them to be determined and never give up, to eventually reap the reward they fought for.  This is what will make a team in this modern game, successful. It will be one that will make Carlton successful. 

We have to stop with the need to think that every time we sack a coach, then hire another, then sack, then hire, this will eventually get us the success we so long for. The modern game of footy requires a long-term plan, not a short-term one. It requires understanding that there will be times when the outcome won’t be one that we all want, but if we keep moving forward, learn from what went wrong, and focus on how to overcome these setbacks, it will furnish the team with a sense of what Brisbane Lions gave themselves: a determination not to repeat the past, but to learn, grow and come out and demolish an opponent who has now asked themselves what went wrong.

I see this potential in Carlton right now.  I see the slow but steady growth and development that will position the team to claim that 17th Premiership.  It may not happen as quickly as some would like, but it will happen. 

Congratulations, Brisbane Lions!

#GOBLUES

All images courtesy of the AFL