CHRIS Fagan says he hasn't lost any sleep over Lachie Neale's decision to tour Collingwood's facilities last week, but conceded he would have preferred it happened after the Lions played Carlton, not before.
Brisbane's two-time Brownlow Medal winner was taken through the Magpies home base last Friday, just 24 hours out from his team's date with the Blues at Marvel Stadium.
Following revelations of Neale's tour, and the Lions' subsequent 76-point loss, former players and pundits criticised the timing of the free agent's visit to a rival club.
Speaking ahead of his team's crucial match against Hawthorn on Friday night, Fagan said it was something the industry had to get used to.
"There's more and more player movement. There's more and more free agents and those free agents can exercise their rights to check out, potentially, their new workplace," he said.
"To be honest, I probably would have preferred if that did happen, it didn't become public knowledge, or it could have been done post our game last week, so that all the speculation around whether that was the right or wrong thing to do wouldn't happen.
"But it has, and I haven't lost any sleep over it."
Fagan said Neale hadn't spoken to him about the meeting prior to it.
"He doesn’t have to, either," Fagan said.
"It would be nice if he would, so you don't get caught by surprise, but that's the way it is."
Fagan has more pressing issues at hand, with the heavy loss to the Blues pushing his side outside the top four on percentage ahead of hosting the Hawks at the Gabba.
Ryan Lester (shoulder), Darcy Gardiner (hamstring) and Dayne Zorko (rested last week) have all been cleared to play, although the dual premiership coach said Hugh McCluggage (calf) and Logan Morris (corked quad) would need to complete the captain's run unscathed to be named.
Fagan said he expected a positive response to last week's hammering.
"I have a lot of faith in this group," he said.
"If you look at their record over the last eight years, you'd have a lot of faith in them too.
"The odd time over those years we've had a poor loss, we've always been able to respond. I'm backing the group in to do that this week."
