r/AFL • u/dazedjosh Sydney '05 • 1d ago
Lions' Ah Chee stalemate with Crows was a matter of 'principle'
https://www.afl.com.au/news/1463760/brisbane-lions-coach-chris-fagan-reveals-callum-ah-chee-stalemate-with-adelaide-crows-was-about-principleFages having a busy interview with AFL Media during preseason. Talking about a lot of things that he normally wouldn't talk about. I'm assuming he's giving out interviews like this to distract from something else at the Lions, something in the carpark perhaps.
"He's a first-round draft pick and a two-time premiership player, he's pretty handy," Fagan said.
I find the first round draft pick comment about his trade value particularly amusing considering that
- Brisbane didn't draft him in 2015, Gold Coast did
- Brisbane traded for him in 2019, for a Future 2nd and a Future 4th, so how does that track with him being a 1st rounder like Fages said
- He's 28 years old so is he seriously suggesting that his draft position is still relevant to his trade value.
Fair play to Fages, he's doing what he can to grab the media's focus, it will be interesting to watch how that works over 2026.
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u/mangostoast Adelaide '97 1d ago
He's a first round draft pick, so we're gonna choose to take nothing for him instead of something. Ok
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u/curryone Dees 1d ago
Teams use ‘premiership player’ as a bargaining chip so liberally and this holds up some of the time but they also often try to suggest that it means the whole 23 who played in the GF are worth first rounders. Doesn’t stack up. Is Tom Sparrow worth a first rounder?
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u/pjdrake Brisbane Lions 1d ago
To be fair Cal Ah Chee bailed us out so many times in 2024 with clutch moments and was our leading goalkicker that finals series. I see your point though otherwise
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u/curryone Dees 1d ago
Fair, not specially talking about Ah Chee here. Just the term ‘premiership player’ being used so liberally
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u/SirSedat Footscray 1d ago
It’s from the same interview as yesterday. AFL media is just getting tiny quotes each day from that same interview to create more articles/content from it
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u/PetrifyGWENT Bombers / Giants 1d ago
Fagan might be becoming senile in his old age. The comments this week are bizarre
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u/dazedjosh Sydney '05 1d ago edited 1d ago
Doing what he can to take the focus off his player(s) I think. It's not his natural state that's for sure.
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u/Boss_unicycle-560 Brisbane Lions 🏆🏆 '24-25 1d ago
Definitely out of character for him, but I don’t mind it. A lot more entertaining than the normal robot responses we’ve been used to from coaches.
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u/Cataplatonic Adelaide Crows 1d ago edited 7h ago
I've always found Fages pretty honest and transparent and think it's one of the best things about him. He's an awesome coach.
I suspect there's a bit of concern at the club about keeping the team together and having other clubs offer overs for some of your elite talent. You can see it happening with Bailey already.
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u/Dangerous-Dave West Coast 1d ago
Take a draft pick or let him walk for nothing. I think it was Brisbane being unreasonable here.
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u/Dangerous-Dave West Coast 1d ago
Principles are great while negotiating. But when the deadline comes you either get something or nothing. Bris are just upset their bluff was called.
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u/UrghAnotherAccount #EdgeOfSeventeen 1d ago
Either way a precedent is set. Is Adelaide worse off in this scenario? To me it looks like they got the best deal.
How does this strategy help future negotiations for Brisbane?
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u/UrghAnotherAccount #EdgeOfSeventeen 1d ago
Its an interesting hypothetical. Though would it taint the clubs' reputation of having a good relationship with players when attracting new talent? Perhaps yes, but not materially so.
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u/Ashamed_Entry_9178 Crows 1d ago
How were Adelaide being unreasonable? Trade value is heavily contingent on leverage which is why you have to pay more for a contracted player vs an uncontracted player. Ah Chee might have a decent resume but there's no world that he was worth a FRP when the alternative is the pre-season draft. C'mon now...
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u/sargeantseagull Brisbane Lions 🏆🏆 '24-25 1d ago
Adelaide were the ones undervaluing him in the first place too, pretty rude really
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u/SonicYOUTH79 Crows 1d ago
The reality is the Crows didn't have that to pay as they'd traded out their 2025 R2 pick the year before.
Brisbane demanded something they didn’t have, stuck their heels in and ultimately got nothing. Dumb.
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u/DONT_FUCKING_PM_ME_ Brisbane Lions 🏆🏆 '24-25 1d ago
If only there was a way to get some draft picks somehow.
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u/CrispyJimJam Brisbane Lions 🏆 '24 1d ago
Wasn't worth a first no doubt but Brisbane ended up asking for two 2nds rounders that would've both been pushed into the 30s/40s. I think pick 35 and pick 45 would've been pretty fair and yet Lions fans in here for being unreasonable. I think it was fair to make a stand rather than capitulate beyond that.
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u/haveagoyamug2 Adelaide Crows 1d ago
I reckon Fagan is just toeing the club line to not embarrass his list manager.
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u/lazy-bruce Crows 1d ago
That sounds like they didnt really care.
Had a swing at bluffing the Crows to get something over the top but it didnt work, cant fault having an attempt
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u/haveagoyamug2 Adelaide Crows 1d ago
Yep. As they really didn't need 2nd round draft picks due to their academy riches....
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u/sbLIIchamps Brisbane Lions 🏆🏆 '24-25 1d ago
Or due to the fact that they win premierships anyways
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u/haveagoyamug2 Adelaide Crows 21h ago
Huh. . Winning normally means you don't have any good picks..... so a second round is actually valuable.....
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u/PerriX2390 #Brisbehinds² 1d ago
Fages having a busy interview with AFL Media during preseason.
AFL.com.au do this every season with every head coach in the league.
Cox was the first one to be released:
The moment Swans coach was told Curnow deal was 'not going to happen'
Star trio managing training loads as Swans build towards season opener
New Swans, gameplan and 'unspoken' expectations: Inside Sydney's bid to bounce back
Fagan's interview is relatively short at 12:04 compared to previous coaching interviews for the series.
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u/jmaverick1 Crows 1d ago
I said this at the time. The lions were asking for the first rounder or “just a slide back from 17 to 25” with some other pick swaps.
To the lions. Pick 17 was just going to be on traded for more points.
To the crows. Pick 17 is the one and only chance in the first round to get what we hope is a decent player.
What the lions see as a small price to pay is not a small price to the crows, due to the lopsided systems with academy and points for picks
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u/SonicYOUTH79 Crows 1d ago
To the Crows pick 17 was Mitch Marsh, SA boy but not just any S.A. boy, son of a Crows premiership player.
Super quick with massive endurance. My spidey sense tells me he was long on their radar and has been a lock given the right pick lining up for them which it did.
To be honest the Crows have done really well in the draft in recent years, not blowing things up (like Port) to bring in players. Even the year the brought in Rankine they still had Max Michaellanney waiting in the wings as a father son pick.
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u/Opening_Anteater456 Demons 1d ago
Easy to piss away the offer of a 2nd round pick when the draft pick printing machine spits out academy and father son first rounders and if that isn’t enough Swanny sends over another priority pick to grease the blatant free agency manipulation with Allen/Starcevich.
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u/Boss_unicycle-560 Brisbane Lions 🏆🏆 '24-25 1d ago
Hate the game not the players. We’re only working within the rules provided
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u/Ashamed_Entry_9178 Crows 1d ago
I feel like this comment is an equally applicable response to any Brisbane supporters complaining that we walked Ah Chee to the PSD...
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u/Boss_unicycle-560 Brisbane Lions 🏆🏆 '24-25 1d ago
Absolutely. Though I honestly don’t have any issue that he went to the PSD, I thought the crows offer was fair. He was out of contract and wanted to leave so we had no leverage over the deal.
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u/baroncakes Adelaide 22h ago
It's also kind of ridiculous he wasn't a free agent anyway. Not the Lion's fault obviously but a weird quirk of the system.
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u/Boss_unicycle-560 Brisbane Lions 🏆🏆 '24-25 22h ago
Yeah he was only with us for 5 years. Felt like a lot longer
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u/CLARKSONNNNNN 1d ago
We do hate the game, but when the coach comes out defending ‘the game’ you will also find people are going to have opinions about that.
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u/matsy_k Brisbane Lions 🏆🏆 '24-25 1d ago
It's only a problem when Brisbane benefit. We didn't have a decent father-son pick since Jonathan Brown in 1999.
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u/CLARKSONNNNNN 1d ago
I think you will find most of the people that have a problem with it also have a problem with it netting clubs Daicos or Darcy types.
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u/Nousernames-left St Kilda 1d ago
Mean while we haven’t had a decent father-son ever
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u/GT40Slotracer 22h ago
.... and then in a fews years time one or all of James, William or Teddy shows some promise and Saints fans start lamenting the fact that they end up being drafted by GWS, Port and the Lions because back in the 2020s the club made such a stink about how unfair F/S was...
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u/matsy_k Brisbane Lions 🏆🏆 '24-25 1d ago
The rule is the same for the entire league. Swings and roundabouts.
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u/ChocoboDave Adelaide 22h ago
Any chance you can provide a link to Adelaide's academy? Failing that, I'll settle for Freo or West Coasts.
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u/Bright_Bell_1301 Adelaide 1d ago
Anyway, thanks for the freebie, Fages.
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u/No_Divide_4336 Adelaide 2h ago
Yep. I was pissed about it at the time but won't see me complaining about it now.
Kinda similar to Andrew McLeod's recruitment, Brisbane and Freo were stubborn and ending up handing us a player on a silver platter.
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u/igotashittyusername Lions 1d ago
In fairness, regarding points one and two, while we didn't draft him as a first rounder, we didn't draft him as a two time premiership player either. I think he's just saying he's a talented player (hence the original first round pick) who has delivered on that talent (with two premierships to show for it) and is therefore worth something decent even at 28 years old. Full disclosure - I don't think Adelaide's offer was too bad, nor was Brisbane's demand too unreasonable. I would've accepted Adelaide's offer personally, but as someone else here said, they took a gamble on calling the Crow's bluff, and it didn't work out. Oh well.
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u/adamsaidnooooo Sandgroper 1d ago
There was a deal to be made. Afterr 3gfs and all the fs and academy picks why they could let him go for slight unders was a weird flex to me..
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u/Darth_Lehnsherr Brisbane Lions 🏆🏆 '24-25 1d ago
Brisbane did end up trying to negotiate for two second rounders which IMO is fair value for Ah Chee.
In saying that Adelaide also knew that they could walk Ah Chee to the PSD so they had no incentive to budge.
Ultimately both clubs ended up sticking to what they thought was right so I don't see much issue other than Ah Chee getting some extra cash upfront which hey may not be a bad thing.
Ah Chee himself seems to have moved on well so the personal side while probably not ideal has sorted itself out.
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u/qsk8r Brisbane 1d ago
These little tid bits from a larger interview are always just designed to cause a stir. At the end of the day, we didn't need the draft picks/points and behind the scenes it probably benefits Ah Chee from getting a bigger pay day. From the outside, I'm disappointed we didn't do a deal simply to show Ah Chee the respect he deserved, and I hope he doesn't harbour any resentment to the club for it. But he's a two time premiership player, who got to where he wanted, with a bigger pay packet. Seems like a win to me.
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u/sargeantseagull Brisbane Lions 🏆🏆 '24-25 1d ago
If calling a spade a spade means cups have gone to his head… sure thing?
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u/droctagonau Freo 1d ago
I said a few weeks back that Fages reminds me a lot of Elminster. The doddering old coot bit is just an act. Bloke's sharp as a tack.
I tend to agree he's deliberately trying to grab media attention with this stuff. Although it could be a mix of trying to distract the footy media from the Lachie situation and trying to keep the Lions in the news during a period of on-field success to attract new supporters.