Brisbane Lions coach Chris Fagan was left shocked and saddened by North Melbourne\u2019s decision to sack his close friend Alastair Clarkson, believing the Kangaroos were \u201cunfair\u201d in their assessment of the four-time AFL premiership-winning mentor.<\/p>\n
The Kangaroos announced on Wednesday that Clarkson had been axed after four seasons of a five-year deal.<\/p>\n
\u201cHaving consulted widely across the club, it has become clear that Alastair no longer has the belief from enough people at the club that he is the right coach to take this group forward,\u201d Kangaroos president Sonja Hood said.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce we knew that, it felt disrespectful to him to have him coach into 2027, knowing we would not extend him at the end of that.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis club needs a coach who can coach for the modern game. It\u2019ll be a coach who knows what they\u2019re doing and it\u2019ll be the coach who\u2019s the best fit for this club.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clarkson was also criticised for not being able to \u201cdelegate\u201d and players being \u201cconfused\u201d due to messaging becoming a \u201clittle bit muddier\u201d.<\/p>\n
Fagan, whose 30-year friendship with Clarkson included working together with success at Hawthorn, said the sacking was a \u201cbig shock to me\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cI actually thought that can\u2019t be right because I felt like under his guidance, North really started to improve, and that we could all see their growth this year,\u201d the Lions coach said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt just reminded me of how tough coaching can be that when a bloke who has been as successful as him as a coach can be jettisoned as quickly as that. <\/p>\n
\u201cI hope he\u2019s OK. I just hope that the feedback that was given at the press conference (on Wednesday) about him was given to him in person at some stage during this year so that he had a chance to act on it. <\/p>\n
\u201cFeedback … if you get it at the right time, you can do something about it. I don\u2019t know whether that was the case or not, but I just hope that it was because it was a pretty fierce press conference, the way that he was spoken about.<\/p>\n
\u201cI reckon (it was) probably an unfair description of the man that\u2019s done an awful lot for footy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fagan said Clarkson, who guided the Hawks to premiership glory in 2008. 2013, 2014 and 2015, had \u201cset the trend in a whole lot of areas in coaching\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cParticularly in his days at Hawthorn with his capacity to go overseas, learn from other codes, (and) bring ideas back that could be applied to the Hawthorn team situation, and that led to an era where they won four premierships,\u201d said two-time AFL premiership-winning coach Fagan, who added how much he had learnt from Clarkson.<\/p>\n
\u201cKeep looking for ideas, keep developing yourself professionally as a coach, don\u2019t sit back and think you know everything \u2013 that\u2019s really important. <\/p>\n
\u201c(Also) his honesty with his players. He was always very honest, sometimes brutally, but you always knew where you stood with him. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll still be friends and still talk a lot about footy, and I\u2019ll still seek his advice, no doubt.\u201d<\/p>\n
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