Coaching spat dead and buried

Brisbane Lions coach Chris Fagan says he has “total respect” for his Geelong counterpart Chris Scott in downplaying any angst between the pair ahead of the Cats visit to the Gabba on Thursday night.

Scott, a part of the Lions’ golden era in the early 2000s, caused a stir when the teams met in round two as he approached Brisbane’s quarter-time huddle in an animated manner at GMHBA Stadium.

At the time it didn’t impress Fagan, but the Lions coach had well and truly moved on when asked on Wednesday about the incident.

“On the Richter scale that would rate as frivolous to me,” Fagan said.

“I’ll look back at the end of my career and I’ll probably run into ‘Scotty’ one day and we’ll have a good laugh about that because much more has been made of it than what actually occurred in my opinion.

“It wasn’t that serious. It was just two coaches passionate about their team having a five-second spray between each other and that was it, and we made a week of talking about it in the media.

“I have total respect for him as a coach and there’s no issue there as far as I’m concerned.”

Geelong coach Chris Scott is well respected by Lions mentor Chris Fagan. Picture: Sarah Reed/AFL Photos via Getty ImagesSource:Getty Images

Fagan was more concerned with improving the Lions’ record against Geelong, who have lost just one of their past 12 meetings with Brisbane.

“They’ve had the wood on us for a long, long time, as have a lot of other teams over the course of the last few years and we’ve been able to meet that challenge,” Fagan said.

“We want to put our best foot forward.

“We’re a younger team on the rise and they’re an established force in the AFL, and they don’t want us to beat them, and we want to beat them.”

Fagan said the Cats understood what was needed to win “big games” and that the Lions were still learning in that area.

“It comes as second nature to a lot of their guys,” he said.

“They’ve got that advantage but we’re on the rise and we’re learning, and every experience that we get to play a team like Geelong, we look forward to.

“We have no reason not to be confident in ourselves (against the Cats) albeit we have total respect for our opposition and know that they’re a great side.”

Lions skipper Dayne Zorko returns from suspension for Thursday night’s clash, with Rhys Mathieson the unlucky omission

“If you want to be a good club you’ve got to have a deep squad so hopefully that’s what we’ve been trying to develop over the last few years,” Fagan said.

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