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Brisbane’s crushing win over Essendon was marred by the leaking of a picture of a whiteboard showing the Lions’ opposition scouting, drawing an angry response from coach Chris Fagan.
The whiteboard listed the strengths and weaknesses of Essendon’s players, including references to star Bomber Zach Merrett being “selfish”, Sam Durham a “hot head” and defender Ben McKay having “low confidence”.
There was also a mention of former Lion Jaxon Prior’s strength being his partner.
The Lions believe a member of the public took the picture through a window while attending an Auskick session at the club’s training base at Brighton Homes Arena.
Fagan said he had spoken to Prior after the game and assured the player there was no ill intent behind the comments.
“I spoke to Jaxon out on the field after the game, as did a lot of our players, and had a bit of a laugh and a joke together,” Fagan said after the Lions’ 64-point win over Essendon at Marvel Stadium.
Fagan hit out at the person, who they believe was an Essendon supporter, who took the photo and released it on social media.
“Somebody illegally took photos of information that was on a whiteboard and then decided to make a hero of themselves and put it out in the public domain,” Fagan said.
“I reckon it’s a little unfair when it’s your workplace and it’s what you do every day, and it’s information that we keep internal, and we’ve been doing it for nine years.
“We’ve been writing the strengths and vulnerabilities of opposition players up on a whiteboard.
“I’m not going to comment on isolated things that were written on it. I can promise you, though, that nothing was written up there that had anything sinister in mind or degrading in mind at all, and that’s where I’ll stay with that.”
More to come
