By Peter Blucher.
Corey Wagner, the almost forgotten Queensland AFL star, did something on the weekend that no other Queenslander has done this year. And in doing so has become a poster boy for AFL aspirants and inadvertently a talking point in one of the game’s hot topics.
Wagner, playing his 4th AFL game of the year, was a key figure in Fremantle’s shock win over Sydney at the SCG which ended the ladder leaders’ 10-game winning streak.
He had 21 possessions, the second-biggest haul of his career and almost double his career-average, plus a career-best 10 marks and three score-involvements in a key set-up role across half back.
Importantly, the now 27-year-old Aspley junior had 491 metres gained – best by a Fremantle player and behind on Sydney’s Nick Blakey.
In a season in which every other Queenslander playing in the AFL has lost to the Swans, Wagner flew home from Sydney to Perth with a justified sense of pride. His AFL career is definitely still ‘alive’.
It’s been an extraordinary journey for the brother of 42-game Melbourne player Josh Wagner, the son of ex-Sandgate star Scott Wagner, and the grandson of Queensland Hall of Famer Gary Wagner.
Drafted in 2015, Corey Wagner has seen 187 rounds of home-and-away football played during his 10 years in the system, and played 32 of them – at three clubs. He had eight games at North Melbourne in 2016-17, 11 at Melbourne in 2019-20, and now 13 at Fremantle in 2023-24.
It’s a story of incredible resilience. Delisted after two years at North, he had a year with Casey in the VFL to earn a second AFL chance at Melbourne only to be delisted after a further two years. And then, after two years with Port Melbourne in the VFL, he earned a third chance at Fremantle.
He played Rounds 5-6 with the Dockers last year and the last seven from Round 18. And then, in case his place at the club was in any sort of jeopardy, he starred in the WAFL grand final.
Playing with Peel Thunder, the Dockers’ WAFL affiliate club, he had 31 possessions and 15 tackles to be his side’s best in a 39-point loss to East Fremantle.
Wagner has even captured the attention of the Perth media, last week doing an extended interview on his football journey.
He told of his Dockers debut against Gold Coast in Gather Round last year, when, in his first AFL game since Round 23 2019, he had a rough re-introduction to the big time.
Three of his first four kicks were turnovers, but when the bad memories of his two previous stints in the AFL could have taken over they didn’t. Because, he said, he was a different player.
“I’ve learnt to move on from mistakes,” Wagner said. “I made a few turnovers. Shit happens. The sooner you get back on the horse and go again, the better. That’s a big side of my game now.
“I reckon a few years ago, one of the reasons I got delisted was because I used to stew on mistakes too much. I was a big thinker and I used to drift out of games whereas now I can flick a switch and go again. That basic execution is a way to keep me in the side.”
He’d finished the 2023 season in a good place, but not for the first time he was cut down by injury in March this year. Playing a practice match for Peel Thunder, he pinged his calf. He couldn’t walk and spent six weeks in rehab as the AFL season started without him.
“It hit me pretty hard. I got pretty emotional over it. I was pretty hard on the missus. She knew I was pretty flat for a couple of days,” he said.
“She was really good for me to help me bounce out of that. She reminded me that I’ve lived that life before of hard work and it was a great opportunity to get back at it in a good environment.
“I love being around the boys. It was a bad couple of days but I got back on the horse and I’ve got belief back now in my body. I didn’t have great calves before but I’ve built them up now.”
Wagner resumed in Round 4 of the WAFL season, broke into the AFL side in Rounds 11-12, missed out in Round 14 after the bye, but returned in Round 15 and had a beauty in Round 16.
Respected at the Dockers as a real ‘energy-bunny’, he said of his return to the AFL side: “The team needed that energy. My confidence was there. I put the work in on the track. JL (coach Justin Longmuir) put me in for a reason and I didn’t want to let him down.
“I like buzzing around. I’m a bit chirpy. I like getting the boys up and about. It’s more of an action than it is a word. I just try and bring it.”
Wagner said last week that life on the selection fringe was something he’d come to accept. “It’s just what I do now. It’s been a part of my preparation.
“I won’t know if I’m in the team or not at the halfway point of the week but I feel like I have balance in my outside life. If I’m in control of that, once I know where I’m playing, it won’t really matter.
“If it’s Peel or Fremantle, I’ll bring my best. I want to be in the ones of course but my attitude won’t change no matter where I play.”
Without realising it, Wagner has become part of the hot AFL debate over the AFL draft system and especially the player academies in Queensland and New South Wales.
He was, after all, the first player from the Brisbane Lions Academy to find himself at an opposition club. And then two, and three.
He was eligible to join the Lions in the 2015 draft, but when North Melbourne bid on him at pick #43 the club decided not to match it. They’d already picked up Josh Schache at pick #2, Eric Hipwood at #14, Ben Keays at #24 and Rhys Mathieson at #39. They decided they needed another ‘tall’ and after passing on Wagner they took Sam Skinner at #47.
As the Melbourne-based clubs unite to question the academy system after the Gold Coast Suns snared four Academy players in the first-round last year, Wagner is part of the bigger picture.
Good enough to be picked up by not one but three clubs, he’s proof that the Academies, so important to the growth of the game in Queensland and NSW, will produce talent for the national pool – not just their own clubs.
And his resilience and willingness to do and go whatever it takes is the perfect example for aspiring Queenslanders.
