Grand Final - In the arena
Tom Stewart has always known disappointment isn't a detour - it's part of the journey. His circuitous path into AFL football taught him that early. Friday night was just another reminder of the game's capacity to humble anyone, anytime.
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
President Theodore ‘Teddy’ Roosevelt, delivered at the Sorbonne, in Paris, France, on 23 April 1910
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“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better…”
There are thousands watching the Brisbane Lions’ ‘Captain’s Run’ training session the day before the AFL Grand Final.
Their coach, Chris Fagan, is setting up the next drill, stepping out the distances and placing the marker cones. It is something he has done thousands of times over more than three decades when no one is watching. For the past three years, all eyes have been on him, and it has become part of the ‘big show’ with his Brisbane team featuring.
Fages plays to the crowd. He had them in the palm of his hand before he realised it, and now that he does know, he is going to have some fun. He loves that they love, and he and his team can bring this joy, the kind that can only come when your team is playing in a Grand Final.
The crowd cheers in anticipation of the cone being placed, the simple act, but Fages pauses, looks up, bright-eyed and with his trademark cheeky grin, and another cheer. He drops the cone where it was always intended, and the crowd erupts as it would if Charlie Cameron had threaded one through from the boundary.
He is loved.
All eyes are on Fages and this show, but there is no ego.
Whilst never shying away from the weighty expectations of the role as a senior coach, and the public expectation that comes with it, he understands better than perhaps anyone I have met in footy, the leadership truism:
“It is all on you, but never about you”.
As he is stepping out the drill, you notice Fages has a slight limp. He is 64, already the oldest man to coach a Premiership when he guided his Lions to victory in 2024, and in 30 hours, he was destined to eclipse his own record when his team comprehensively beat the Cats in a very emphatic performance.
It is the kind of limp I have seen many times in old footballers, as their bodies “dine at the banquet of their consequences”. The old-timers move as if they are carrying a big can of paint; their hips, knees, and ankles, once fluid, precise, and exacting in their unconscious motion, now need to be reminded and urged to take a step, then the next, and then the one after.
They have been in the arena.
And so it is with leadership.
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“The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming…”
“Never trust a leader without a limp” is one of my favourite quotes.
About eighteen months ago, as the Brisbane team struggled through the first half of the 2024 season, it was suggested by one prominent football pundit that Fages should be replaced.
He had taken them as far as he could, he argued, and it was now up to someone else to take over. Otherwise, the ‘window’ would close, he reasoned, and the opportunity that this talented list that Fages had structured and sculptured would be lost.
To be clear, I have no issue with this person stating an opinion; it is, after all, just that - an opinion.
Our game needs opinions. It creates and maintains interest, as discussions from screens and newspapers find their way into offices, cafes, and at dining tables. Even more significantly, some become the catalyst for the change the game needs to make. Most, however, tend to be binary and provocative, made for impact and effect, whereas the work of leaders, those with their actual hands on the levers, is nuanced and mostly ambiguous.
The judgment being made did not question the coaching character of Chris Fagan, but was critical of his football strategies and tactics.
Since this opinion was aired, without much pushback from his peers, the Lions have won two Premierships by a total margin of 107 points, having lost the 2023 Grand Final by just four points.
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“…but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly…
Fages would never allow a view to define him.
No one had walked (or limped) his path in our game before.
He understood the need to choose and define his own course, or ‘the world’ would define it for him.
And it is a choice, and one all leaders must make.
To find their own voice. Have an opinion. Speak to their opinion; put it out there. Seek the counterview, and invite a different perspective. Listen. Allow the counterview to replace their take long enough to determine whether they need to make a change or stay the course.
Make decisions that matter, with consequences they wake up to that only they can make. Decisions made with imperfect information because if there is perfect information, we don’t need leadership. Decisions make themselves.
Make decisions that build cultures, vision-driven and values-based. Defined and modelled by the leader. Step up. Challenge behaviour.
To get buy-in, to drive outcomes, to influence, to adapt. To inspire. To make change.
They are now learning to lead. It is hard, but it is getting just a little bit easier, which is just as well because they need to make room for more hard stuff.
Soon, they start to trust what you bring, something unique to them, self-expressed leadership, which can only be learned by doing and being.
They will make mistakes, but if they own them, they learn, and by sharing their learnings and their vulnerability, so do those around them.
The moments that meet them where they are but do not leave them where they found them, understood more with each telling and reflection.
Learnings that become embedded in their soul.
Real-world experiences gifting them the feedback needed to grow. To get better.
Go in search of feedback, something Chris Fagan actively does.
“If you want your players to be coachable, you’ve got to be coachable yourself”, he says.
They are building their leadership consciousness, character and capability, which people will connect with.
They are starting to develop a slight limp, just like Fages.
They are ‘in the arena’.
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“..so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”
“Never play an injured player in a Grand Final” was spoken of as timeless football wisdom this past week, focusing on the torn calf of Co-Captain and dual Brownlow Medalist Lachie Neale, who had played just one game in 56 days.
Fages selected him, and the flak came his way.
It was almost as though the pundits were saying, “Fages, don’t you know that timeless football wisdom?”
There was more criticism when Lachie Neale started as a sub.
He was subbed in after the most statistically even first half I have seen in footy, which included the scoreboard itself locked at 5.6 (36) apiece.
After half time, the game opened up, Lachie Neale’s fresh legs making a difference, the same fresh legs that enabled him to kick a goal from fifty metres, the very edge of his kicking capability, testing the most talked about calf in football.
Whilst the game was still tight, it seemed like the moment the game shifted out of reach for the Cats.
And a fitting final ‘Moment of the Match’ for 2025, now embedded in the Grand Final folklore of this mighty game.
As the ball went through, special comments man Kane Cornes said, “Have they made the right call by picking him? I didn’t think so, but perhaps Chris Fagan knows more about his player than all of the rest of us”.
Yes, he does. He knows them in all the ways great coaches know their players, having played an integral role in helping them work it out for themselves, often by seeing possibilities they were yet to see in themselves.
And Fages, embracing the decision and all its ambiguity, said afterwards:
"I was lying in bed last night thinking, 'I'm either going to look like a total idiot or a total genius,'”.
The credit does indeed belong to the man who is actually in the arena.
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