Football clubs, of all codes, can be a romantic bunch. They embrace the idea that when it comes to appointing a coach, there is often no need to look any further than their own fold.
In a throwback to the days of old when captain-coaches both marshalled the troops on the field and handled the reins off the playing pitch, football clubs feel that appointing a favourite son as coach is taking the safety-first approach.
Better the devil you know than the one you don’t, right?
History shows that the road of recalling past players as coach is full of hits, misses and more than its fair share of disasters. When a football club appoints a favourite son as coach, its time for the fans to buckle up for what could be a rollercoaster ride ahead.
This season there are five AFL clubs which have favourite sons as head coach. These men are at different stages in their respective coaching careers, but all will feel the added burden of being coach of the side they played for at some point during their coaching careers.
Brett Ratten is in his fourth full season as head coach of his beloved Blues, and prior to the start of the year there was considerable pressure from supporters for him to lead Carlton to a top-four finish this year.
The Blues have made the finals the past two seasons, but have not made it beyond the first week of the finals under Ratten’s tenure. With inspirational skipper Chris Judd in arguably career best form, Ratten is well positioned to lead his side deep into the finals this year.
For the moment, the heat is off the Carlton coach.
John Worsfold played twelve seasons for the West Coast Eagles, and tasted the ultimate success in 2006 when he coached the Eagles to premiership glory. Like his Blues counterpart, Worsfold entered this season with considerable pressure to produce results.
Having finished bottom of the ladder last season, the press and public were keen to see if Worsfold could arrest the slide of the once mighty Eagles, or risk facing the axe. The critics have been kept at bay so far this season, with the Eagles sitting just outside the eight with three wins from their first six matches.
After securing five wins from seven matches in his stint as interim head coach last season, Matthew Primus was appointed senior coach of Port Adelaide this year, and already he is experiencing the pressure of coaching the side he played for.
The Power has just the one win from seven matches this season, and the club suffered a hugely embarrassing loss to the fledgling Gold Coast Suns in round five.
Although it is only his first full season as coach, Primus will need to lift his side’s performances in the second half of this season, or risk having questions asked about whether he was a good choice as coach of the Power.
Brisbane Lions coach Michael Voss is the favourite son under the most pressure to perform as coach this year. Following a finals berth in his first season as coach in 2009, Voss took a chance and traded heavily prior to the start of last season, believing his side’s premiership window was about to open up.
The Lions won their first four matches of last season, but since then have floundered, and sit at the foot of the AFL ladder, winless after seven rounds this season. After losing to the Gold Coast Suns on Saturday night, the knives are out for Voss.
James Hird, who was joint winner of the 1996 Brownlow Medal with Voss, returned this year to coach the Essendon Bombers. Thus far everything Hird has touched as coach has turned to gold.
The Bombers made the final of the pre-season competition, and have won four of their first seven matches, as well as one draw (against Ratten’s Blues.)
Pre-season Hird was labelled by some as the “messiah” of Essendon, and while the club keeps winning he will continue to have the backing of the supporters. It will be interesting to see how the fans respond to Hird when the honeymoon period is over, and the club takes an inevitable downturn on the field at some point.
One of the many risks with appointing a favourite son as coach is that the man who was a much loved player will wind up being a much maligned coach, leading to bad blood between both parties.
It has been said that there are only two types of coaches – those who have been sacked, and those who will be sacked, and sacking a favourite son as coach when things go off the rails can lead to the fans of a club becoming disenfranchised.
Only time will tell which of the current crop of favourite sons will triumph, and which will falter, but don’t be surprised if one or more face the axe before the end of this season.
Follow Michael Filosi on Twitter @michaelfilosi
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