COACH Chris Fagan said he was proud of how co-captain Lachie Neale stood up earlier in the week to deliver an honest public message following Brisbane's one-point loss to Carlton.
Following a team review of the match on Monday, Neale went into great detail on Tuesday morning around how the Lions had, at times, been selfish and lazy during the game-altering 25 minutes either side of half-time.
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Although Fagan was disappointed in some of the reporting of Neale's comments, he said the Lions would not shy away from what had gone wrong against the Blues.
"He talked about what we talked about," Fagan said before boarding a flight to Perth on Friday.
"We had a meeting on Monday. We looked at the first 50 minutes, which was absolutely outstanding. We looked at the next 25 minutes, which was awful, and we looked at the next 50 minutes, which was good.
"We identified the behaviours we didn't like, the efforts we didn't like.
"All Lachie did the other day was report that back. He wasn't giving his opinion. He was reporting back what was talked about in that meeting.
"I'm glad he did because we're not going to shy away from that."
Fagan said good organisations owned up to the truth, while poor organisations hid from it.
"I was proud of the way he stepped up," he said.
"I was disappointed in the way it was reported. It wasn't Lachie Neale slamming the Brisbane footy club or his teammates, he was merely talking about what happened at that meeting.
"We had a good, honest conversation on Monday that everyone was involved in and everyone at the club was cool with what Lachie said."
Neale was not on the plane west to face Fremantle on Sunday after scans revealed slight damage to his hamstring from the Carlton match.
Fagan said with the long flight, coupled with a bye following this match, the club had to weigh up whether it was a risk to play Neale against the Dockers.
"He effectively has 20 days to recover," Fagan said. "We've made the conservative call, which I think is the right call."
Neale is expected to face Collingwood at the Gabba in the Easter Thursday Grand Final rematch.
