Chris Fagan and his Lions have essentially stuck to the same set of core beliefs around contest, ball control, transition, and front half footy for his entire reign.
A man got to have a code, and their code is defined by those core four principles.
It was the theme of my piece after the Lions won last year.
But last year, what drove Brisbane was probably the biggest change in identity that the Lions have undertaken under Fagan.
When Kidean Coleman went down injured last year, Fagan threw Dayne Zorko to half back.
Zorko is astonishingly aggressive with ball in hand, which is dangerous from the back half.
Particularly for a coach like Fagan who wants control, both of football and of geography, above all else.
However, he still swung Zorko back looking for some spark from what had become a slow and safe method to move the ball.
Zorko played so well in the role that he earned himself the greenest light in footy to take on tough corridor kicks out of the back half and that drove the Brisbane surge to the 2024 premiership.
This year, it’s remained fluro green.
Zorko has got a Brett Favre-like gunslinger mentality and some support at providing bounce from the back half with elite runners and ball users like Jaspa Fletcher and Darcy Wilmot.
They have been the engine of the team all season long.
The Lions still led the league in mark differential last year – a stat that they’ve been top-4 in every year since 2018 – but the way they moved the ball changed dramatically and for the better.
That new risk appetite became such a calling card that the Zorko, Wilmot and Fletcher trio became as crucial as anything else to the identity of the Lions.
It wasn’t always this way though.
Their DNA in the first part of Fagan’s run was contest first, then the rest.
From 2019 to 2023, the Lions were never worse than fifth for stoppage scoring differential, and third for clearances.
It was the key to their game.
It was how they started their front half game and how they controlled a game’s geography.
It was their version of Don Corleone not getting into dirty businesses.
It was the bedrock from which everything else was built.
Last year and this year, they’ve still been good in those areas, but they have been less of a focus because of that shift in DNA with their ball movement.
While they were still an elite clearance winning team last year and this year, the Lions were fifth and eighth in stoppage scoring differential in 2024 and 2025, respectively.
They simply got their goals from other places and prioritised their resources differently.
On Grand Final day, the Lions went backwards to go forwards.
The first half of the Grand Final was a dirty, high-pressure game.
There were almost no transition opportunities, and if there was a chance it got shut down by Geelong’s pressure.
Zorko, Wilmot and Fletcher all got enough of the ball but in general they couldn’t quite bite off the kicks to start their transition game.
Even with the second half scoring avalanche, the Lions had their second worst game of the season at moving the ball from D50 to a score.
But, with the institutional knowledge that Fagan has built with this core group of Lions, they were able to go back to old reliable with the score tied at half time.
The trusty old steed that is scoring from the contest.
They went back to it in the Preliminary Final against Collingwood as well.
Two of the Lions three best stoppage scoring games for the season both by totals and differential came in the final two games of the year.
How’s that for dancing with the one that brung ya?
A big part of the Lions being able to unlock that part of their game was the introduction of Lachie Neale.
Lachie Neale cleaned a dirty game.
About the only thing I got right about this game was that picking Neale was the right choice because his hands are so good in contest that they can nullify a Geelong strength, which is not allowing opponent first possession to become a clearance.
Neale, with his seeming inability to fumble in a tight moment, was always the perfect antidote to that.
He was like Marty Byrde laundering cartel money with the clean ball he was able to feed out to the users.
In just a half of footy, Neale had 17 disposals, seven clearances, seven score involvements and an already iconic goal.
With two straight flags and seven straight years of finals footy, it’s about time to start talking about this Chris Fagan build as one of the greatest of all time.
He’s built a remarkable footy club both on and off the field and has shown, over the last few years, a genuine ability to adapt.
But in a world where history seems to be echoing itself constantly – all the way from politics to the fact that the streamers will inevitably bundle and we’ll just get Foxtel again – Fagan ended up being right.
The thing that he prioritised at the start, moved away from as the game moved away from him, came back into vogue.
In the end, what was old is new again for the Lions.
They went backwards to go forwards.