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The most sought-after position in AFL

Roar Rookie
19th June, 2014
5

When a senior coaching position becomes available, the assistants will submit their resumés in the hope of securing the top gig.

Interviews lead to whispers – tweets in the modern day – about who is going to end up in charge.

A shortlist is drawn up. When it comes down to the last three or four, it’s a matter of taking a punt on one of the capable candidates.

Most of the time the teams in the premiership windows will have their stocks raided. Gone are the days that the captain retires to become the coach – Michael Voss, Brett Ratten and James Hird are seeing to that.

Fresh ideas and more importantly successful plans are what the newly coachless club wants. Rarely will you find a club at the top that needs the winds of change blown through the ranks.

So the when a team has lost too many games to warrant supporting the coach anymore, it’s deemed a failure and a new direction is to be taken. If your last coach had been there 10 years, it’s time for a fresh-faced assistant.

If it was a fresh-faced assistant that was dumped, then go for an experienced doyen who can right the club again.

Ken Hinkley was starting to become the single girl of a by-gone era who never married. What’s wrong with him? Why hasn’t anyone picked him? I’m not taking that risk if no one else has. He was probably one declined application away from resigning himself to seeing out his days as a great assistant coach.

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People now know when you miss out on the top job repeatedly, there are no secrets anymore. It’s becoming common practice that assistant coaches are turning the tables on their suitors and no longer applying at all. Instead they wait for the call to come to them.

This seems to go against everything I was taught when job hunting. No one is going to knock on your door and offer you a job…well, they’re starting to now.

During Melbourne’s ill-fated coach hunts of 2007 they went for an untried assistant even though they interviewed experienced coaches in Mark Williams and Kevin Sheedy. Dean Bailey ended up with the job – and that seems to have irked Sheedy no end.

When that run ended with the fresh-faced assistant, the club threw as much money as it could find at the experience of Alistair Clarkson. He considered it but drew out a contract with Hawthorn instead.

The Dees were forced to choose from a thin pool of assistants and ended up with Mark Neeld. Many consider the ASADA investigation as the darkest day in Australian sport. Melbourne fans instead look back at the day they saw Neeld in a Melbourne polo.

This is where Paul Roos’ plan of announcing that the position under him was assured of a senior role seemed flawless. Get an assistant coach to transfer that position to Melbourne and stroll into the centre chair in the box.

*Crickets*

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The Demons have come out to say how surprised they were at the lack of interest. While it’s well documented that the club was in near freefall, it’s still a noteworthy reaction from the coaching fraternity.

Leigh Matthews was questioned when he took the job at Brisbane as they were the cellar-dwellers. He was asked if he considered their performances a turn off. He said that you never look at the ladder position when considering a coaching job. If you want to coach, you take a coaching job.

As the great Alan Jeans said, “You haven’t coached until you’ve coached a bottom side.”

I look forward to seeing what happens to Chris Scott if Geelong starts to slip.

Stewart Dew suddenly became Jock McHale or Norm Smith when a bidding war erupted between Sydney and Melbourne for his services. But in the end he decided to stay in the Harbour City.

It will be a very interesting to see who does step into the most watched empty spotlight in the AFL when it becomes available.

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