Brisbane coach Chris Fagan has leapt to the defence of his star midfielder Lachie Neale, who whacked his side’s efforts after their one-point loss to Carlton in Opening Round.

The Lions coughed up a 46-point lead at the Gabba to hand the Blues their first win at the venue since 2013, a rare loss for the home side.

Neale then took it upon himself to publicly hold his teammates to account after the shock loss.

He blasted his side for taking “easy options”, while allowing Carlton to flourish in front of goal, piling on eight unanswered majors in the third quarter.

“… selfishness, we weren’t cohesive on defence, probably thought scoreboard was ticking along all right, so maybe that intensity dropped away a little bit … we probably chose some easy options,” Neale told media during the week.

“(We) didn’t dig in and basically, you’re shitting on your teammates.”

The dual Brownlow medallist copped some backlash for the comments, but Fagan was only too happy to defend Neale’s words.

“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,” Fagan said on Friday.

Fagan, whose side went down to Collingwood by just four points in last year’s Grand Final, declared the mistakes made in Opening Round have already been addressed ahead of round one.

“I’m glad he did (call out our mistakes) because we’re not going to shy away from it,” Fagan said.

“We’re a really strong organisation, and you know what good organisations do? They ‘fess up to the truth, and that’s what he did.”

“Poorer organisations would hide and not say what we’ve got to improve.