Fremantle and Essendon has been revealed as two clubs who considered Chris Fagan as its senior coach almost 15 years apart.
Fagan was the head of football at Hawthorn during its golden years before his left-field appointment at Brisbane ahead of 2017.
Speaking on the Return of the Pride podcast, the two-time premiership coach unveiled that he was in the mix for the Bombers gig in 2015 following the departure of club great James Hird.
Neale Daniher, who was assisting in the Essendon coach search, played a role in getting Fagan in the room.
"When Neale was involved in helping Essendon find a coach, I'd agreed to go and have a chat to them," Fagan said.
"And then it came out in the news that they'd flown to Perth to meet John Worsfold, and I rang up the bloke and said, 'sounds like you're going after John Worsfold, I'm not going to waste my time'.
"So I didn't. So that's as close as I got.
"I didn't think it was ever going to happen, and I wasn't spending my life worrying about whether it would or it wouldn't. I was happy being the football manager at Hawthorn.
"We were a successful footy club. Life was good."
The Dockers, in 2001, was another club that considered Fagan for the top job, but instead went with Chris Connolly.
The-then CEO Cameron Schwab was the link to the Western Australia club, given he helped appoint Fagan to the Demons.
"When Fremantle appointed Chris Connolly, there was a little bit of interest in me by them. That was more because Cameron Schwab was the CEO there ... he was part of the group that appointed me to Melbourne in the first place. So there was a little bit of a flicker there."
A sliding doors moment for Fagan.
After a successful stint at Hawthorn as the football manager, a surprise appointment to the Lions top job proved to be fruitful for all parties.
Brisbane have secured the past two flags, and have featured in three consecutive grand finals.
And there's no showing of slowing down.
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