Luc Longley’s three-peat wisdom is legit fuelling Brisbane’s dynasty

Of all the people you’d expect to be whispering in the ears of an AFL dynasty, a bloke best known for setting screens for Michael Jordan probably isn’t top of the list. But here we are, and honestly, once you sit with it for a minute, it’s the most Brisbane Lions story imaginable.

News broke via ABC Sport that Luc Longley — yes, that Luc Longley, Fremantle’s inaugural number one ticket holder and a genuine three-peat champion with the Chicago Bulls in the 90s — sat down with Lions players back in July and dropped some knowledge that’s apparently stuck with them ever since. And now, as Brisbane chases a third straight flag, players are pointing back to that conversation as a genuine turning point. No notes from me on this one, it’s just a beautiful piece of footy trivia that also happens to be deadly serious.

Wait, the Freo bloke is helping Brisbane win flags?

I know, I know. Let that sink in for a sec. Longley is a Fremantle tragic through and through, a genuine foundation figure of that club, and here he is playing a small but apparently meaningful role in a rival club’s premiership dynasty. Footy people love this kind of crossover story and so do I, because it proves something I reckon gets lost in all the tribalism: winning at the highest level is winning at the highest level, no matter the sport, no matter the guernsey.

Longley knows things about back-to-back-to-back success that literally almost nobody else in Australian sport can speak to firsthand. The Bulls won three flags in a row twice in the 90s, and anyone who’s watched even a bit of The Last Dance knows how brutal, how mentally taxing, how genuinely weird that pursuit becomes once you’re the hunted rather than the hunter. That’s exactly the head-space Brisbane has been sitting in all year, and it’s exactly why a conversation like this lands so differently coming from someone who’s actually lived it rather than just talked about it on telly.

What actually gets said in these chats

We don’t get the full transcript, obviously, and I wouldn’t want one anyway because some of this stuff is meant to stay in the inner sanctum. But from what’s filtered out, it sounds like Longley’s message wasn’t some grand tactical breakthrough. It was more about mindset — how the challenge shifts once you’ve already won, how other teams start treating you differently, how complacency is the real opponent by year three, not whatever team’s lining up against you on grand final day.

That tracks with everything we’ve seen from this Brisbane group under Chris Fagan. They’re not a flashy, aura-farming outfit that talks a big game. They’re relentlessly consistent, almost boringly professional in how they go about their business, and if there’s one thing that separates good teams from dynasties it’s exactly that stuff Longley’s talking about — the boring stuff, the stuff that doesn’t show up on the stat sheet.

Why this actually matters for a club chasing history

Let’s be real about what’s on the line here. Winning three flags on the trot in the modern AFL era, with the salary cap, the draft equalisation, the sheer physical toll of a 23-round season plus finals, is an absolutely mammoth ask. Only a handful of clubs have ever managed it. So when your list is sitting there in July already carrying two flags in the trophy cabinet, the psychological side of the game becomes just as important as anything Fagan draws up on the whiteboard.

That’s where someone like Longley becomes genuinely valuable, not as a motivational-speaker-for-hire type but as someone who can speak with total credibility about the exact emotional terrain this group is walking through right now. Players get sick of hearing the same messages from the same coaching staff week after week — that’s just human nature. A fresh voice, especially one with actual three-peat scar tissue, cuts through in a way that internal messaging sometimes can’t.

The bigger picture: footy learning from other codes

I’m a big believer that AFL clubs should be shameless about nicking good ideas from wherever they can find them, and this is a great example of that in action. Basketball, rugby league, even soccer at the elite end — there’s cross-pollination happening all the time between sports at the top level, and the clubs willing to go looking for that edge are usually the ones rewarded for it.

Brisbane’s recruitment of outside voices isn’t new either. This is a club that’s clearly comfortable bringing in people from left field if it thinks there’s something useful to extract. It fits the broader identity of this group under Fagan: quietly confident, willing to explore every avenue, never resting on what’s worked before even when what’s worked before has literally delivered back-to-back flags.

A cheeky footnote for the Freo faithful

There is something genuinely funny about this whole situation if you’re a Dockers supporter, and I say that with love because footy needs a laugh sometimes. Your club’s most beloved ticket holder, a legend of Fremantle’s early identity, is out here helping the enemy chase three-peat history. If Freo ever does get their own flag drought broken, I reckon they’d want Longley’s energy pointed squarely at Cockburn, not Brisbane’s inner sanctum.

But that’s footy and that’s sport more broadly — loyalty runs deep, but respect for genuine excellence runs deeper, and Longley clearly sees something in this Brisbane group worth investing his time and wisdom in.

What it means heading into finals

None of this guarantees anything on grand final day, obviously. Conversations don’t kick goals and mindset chats don’t stop a hot opposition forward line. But in a competition this tight, where the margins between success and heartbreak are measured in centimetres and split-second decisions, every edge counts. If a chat with a bloke who’s actually done the three-peat thing helps even one or two Brisbane players find that extra gear in September, it’ll have been worth every minute.

Whatever happens from here, I reckon this whole episode says something pretty cool about where this Lions group is at. They’re not just talented, they’re curious, they’re humble enough to go looking for wisdom outside their own bubble, and that’s exactly the kind of culture that builds dynasties rather than just premierships. Go the Lions.