Chris Fagan (centre) is hands-down 2019’s “coach of the year” given Brisbane’s remarkable rise. Photo: GETTY IMAGES

1. For the past two decades, it seems, the man named coach of the All-Australian team has been an automatic selection.

The honour has been bestowed upon that year’s premiership coach every time.

It wasn’t always so. In fact, six of the first eight All-Australian coaches under the modern model (1991-present) were not men who held up the cup with their captains on that last Saturday in September.

The most recent was Terry Wallace, whose Western Bulldogs were a Round 22 win over North Melbourne away from claiming top spot in 1998 before suffering a second successive preliminary final heartbreak at the hands of Adelaide, which would go on to win another flag.

Picking the premiership-winning coach has been a safe option ever since – but it’s time for change.

Barring a major twist in events between now and the end of the season, Chris Fagan should earn the All-Australian honour in 2019. What the 58-year-old has done with Brisbane this year has been nothing short of remarkable.

The Lions won a total of 10 matches across 2017-2018 and have already beaten that tally this season, winning 11 of 16 games, with a favourable run to come over the final six home-and-away rounds.

They sit third on the ladder this late in a season for the first time since Leigh Matthews was in charge of his famous triple-premiership side.

And who is to say Fagan’s Lions couldn’t salute in September? They’re not the favourites, and will certainly face stiff opposition from the likes of Geelong, Collingwood, West Coast and Richmond.

But they’re firming as a genuine contender after years in the doldrums and Fagan would rightly deserve All-Australia recognition if the votes were cast now.

Fortunately, the AFL Coaches’ Association has a better system of anointing its “Coach of the Year” than does the AFL with its safe option.

All senior coaches vote on a 3-2-1 basis for the “Allan Jeans Senior Coach of the Year Award” at the end of each season. And Fagan would be an odds-on favourite at this stage.

Former West Coast coach John Worsfold won the Allan Jeans Award in 2011 after engineering a similar turnaround to Fagan’s, steering the Eagles from a four-win wooden spoon season into fourth spot and a preliminary final appearance.

Worsfold is one of four two-time recipients of the award, along with Mark Thompson, Luke Beveridge and John Longmire.

Each member of the quartet has won it once in a premiership year and once in a season that didn’t end with grand final glory.

Intriguingly, Alastair Clarkson – the All-Australian coach in each of his four premiership seasons with Hawthorn and undisputedly one of the game’s greatest ever coaches – has never won the AFLCA award.

2. “Bloody Collingwood never has to travel”

Though incorrect, it’s a familiar refrain from fans of rival clubs at the same time each year, when the fixture is released and the Magpies are invariably gifted a lighter travel burden than most clubs.

But those fans should probably thank their lucky stars, because the men in black-and-white fare better than most sides away from home, despite not getting much practice.

The gritty come-from-behind win over West Coast at a heaving Optus Stadium last week was one of the best in a strong field over recent years.

And it meant the Pies maintained an unblemished interstate record (3-0) this season, with wins in Brisbane, Sydney and Perth.

In fact, Collingwood is 7-1 in regular season matches outside Melbourne over the past 18 months, having maintained a respectable 45 per cent winning ratio interstate in the four straight seasons it missed the finals (2014-2017).

Overall, the Magpies have won 29 of 47 interstate matches (61 per cent) this decade. And they get another chance to prove their wares on the road against Greater Western Sydney at the Showground (aka Giants Stadium) on Saturday evening.

Successive interstate matches are a rare occurrence, even for non-Victorian clubs that jump on a plane almost every other week.

But Brisbane – please excuse a brief switch to American sports vernacular – recently completed a sweep of its two-game road trip at GWS and Port Adelaide. And Geelong faces a similar stretch when it visits Sydney and Fremantle in rounds 19 and 20.

Injuries will play a big part in Collingwood’s bid to match the Lions’ interstate success over the past fortnight.

The Pies will be missing Darcy Moore (hamstring) and Scott Pendlebury (finger), however, the losses should covered by the return of Jeremy Howe and Taylor Adams.

Meanwhile, GWS is reeling from the loss of Stephen Coniglio to a likely season-ending knee injury and is still without fellow midfield gun Josh Kelly (calf).

The second-placed Magpies will start favourites and should be 4-0 interstate before a fifth and final regular season travel assignment, when they face the Crows at Adelaide Oval in Round 22.

3. If you haven’t got Max Gawn as captain of your fantasy football team this week, then you’re probably giving your opponent a head start.

The bearded behemoth said this week he had been “really looking forward to the battle” with Nic Naitanui, but alas, the West Coast ruck star has been ruled out of action indefinitely with an ankle injury.

Eagles’ premiership tall Nathan Vardy is also sidelined, meaning Gawn will confront journeyman Tom Hickey and a back-up big man in Alice Springs.

Adam Simpson has employed a two-ruck policy throughout his time at the helm, and appears likely to call up Keegan Brooksby for his first Eagles appearance. And if you’re typing that name into Google right now, you’re not alone.

The former Gold Coast ruckman played 14 senior games in three seasons with the Suns from 2015-2017, and was picked up by West Coast as a pre-season supplemental selection period recruit in November, primarily as insurance against injuries.

After 10 games for the Eagles’ new reserves side in the WAFL, where he averages 30 hit-outs and 12.6 disposals, the 29-year-old is set to get his chance. Simpson’s next best option would be using young forward Oscar Allen to give Hickey a chop-out.

But exposing Allen to Gawn – and then seasoned ruckmen like Todd Goldstein, Matthew Kreuzer, Toby Nankervis and Ben McEvoy in the run towards September – wouldn’t be advised. It would be like throwing the 192cm and 87kg 20-year-old to the wolves.

Meanwhile, Naitanui’s latest injury setback could derail the Eagles’ hopes of defending their premiership.

Yes, we hear you. They lost “Nic Nat” to a knee injury last year and still won the flag, but Scott Lycett isn’t there this time around. Naitanui had loomed as a potential gamebreaker in September and now faces a race against time to be fit for West Coast’s flag push.

4. Adelaide and Essendon have faced off in two finals matches since the Crows launched themselves onto the AFL landscape in 1991.

One is dragged out regularly and replayed on a grainy VHS tape or standard definition DVD, and the other has been erased from the memory bank altogether. Which one is which depends entirely on the club you support.

And while it is unlikely the two will meet in another September classic this year – reprising memories of the Baby Bombers’ comeback in 1993 and the Crows’ slaughter of their visitors in 2009 – we’re in for a taste of something similar on Friday night.

Essendon has won three straight matches to storm into the top eight and is hot on Adelaide’s hammer as both sides seek to climb into a spot that would give them a home final this year.

The loser could slip as low as 10th by the end of the weekend and be forced to start relying on other results going its way over the final five weeks of the regular season just to reach September.

Essendon is 0-2 against Adelaide at Adelaide Oval and hasn’t got within 10 goals, losing the two previous clashes by a combined margin of 147 points.

Key defender Michael Hurley’s shoulder injury and his absence won’t help.

5. There was no shortage of Western Bulldogs fans on social media giving it the old “here we go again” when they realised their side would be taking on an opponent with a fresh caretaker coach in charge for the third time this season.

North Melbourne beat the Bulldogs immediately after Brad Scott’s departure became public knowledge and lowly Carlton pushed them to within a kick less than a fortnight after Brendon Bolton was sacked.

Now the Dogs face the unknown in the form of a St Kilda side reeling from Alan Richardson’s departure on Tuesday.

The fear of “sacked coach bounce” is real as the Dogs chase a top-eight berth. But if I’m Luke Beveridge addressing my players this week, I’m telling them to stuff that for a joke. The flip side of facing such a tricky task is to take a positive approach and tackle it head on.

It should be looked at as another challenge the Dogs can use to their advantage after impressive victories over Port Adelaide, Geelong and Melbourne.

A run of four wins in five matches since the bye (they lost to Collingwood) has given the Bulldogs all sorts of confidence that they can build upon by putting St Kilda away this week.

They’ll start favourites at home against Fremantle in Round 19 and could enter a difficult final month of the home-and-away season with a full head of steam. From there, anything is possible. You only need to look back three years for proof.