Justin Longmuir was in that place late on Saturday afternoon after the AFL grand final. During the presentation, he began to topple over, like someone suffering abdominal pain or warming up for a pilates class. In reality, it was probably a body going into shock.
We shouldn’t use words like “grief” when we talk about losing a game of football. What happened to Fremantle and Longmuir was akin to someone running over the family pet. Longmuir, a farmer, would scoff at such a comparison.
But the hardest thing for anyone associated with Fremantle is finding the right measure of hurt – do you hide under the doona for a week, do you skip the country, do you employ a bit of gallows humour, or do you take pride in how well they played? There is no precedent or playbook for how to respond to a loss like that. Chris Fagan was in a very different place.
At first, he was utterly wrung out. Those around him seemed conscious of giving him space. It took him several minutes to gather himself, to actually enjoy himself.
Within half an hour he had reverted to type – deflecting all praise, commending the opposition, reminding his players to be humble. And he was leaving breadcrumbs. This was a man who had almost certainly made up his mind to call it a day as senior coach.
For any of the 100,000 people present at the MCG, the half hour after the grand final was not a time to be making rash life decisions. But Fagan had made his decision. If the Lions win again in 2027, they’ll join the Collingwood side of the Depression era as the only VFL/AFL club to win four premierships in a row.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
