The end of the season is a time for the coaching staff to review the playing list, but this off-season has seen a complete role reversal, with club boards receiving player feedback on what they did and more importantly didn’t like about their coach.
While this form of feedback is not new in any workplace, it can become a dangerous practice within a sporting club.
It needs to be very carefully managed, otherwise it could become a case of the tail wagging the dog.
An AFL coach has to manage around 45 different egos and personalities, ensuring all feel respected and cared for, while also providing the honest feedback required to improve their individual output.
Couple with this the relationships required with other assistant coaches and major stakeholders in the club, and coaching soon becomes a very taxing position with excellent communication skills required.
In order to provide a united front and ensure that the coach is given every opportunity to succeed the board must be completely confident they have the right man, and in recent times player murmurings at some clubs have provided the final siren on some coaching careers.
This spring we have seen a number of clubs rightly or wrongly stand by their coaches, some have had stern internal reviews and survived, while others have not been so lucky.
The Adelaide Crows and Gold Coast Suns both seemingly sacked their coach after the playing group lost confidence in them. While board and supporter unrest is a common trigger for a coach parting ways with a club, rarely does a playing group dictate who it wants in charge, so it was surprising that it has happened twice in a matter of weeks.
That both coaches were ousted before even James Hird (we will get to him shortly) is incredible and shows the power that the senior players at both clubs wield.
In both cases it may be the correct decision and in seasons to come changing the coach now may end up a master stroke, but surely in both instances the coaches seem to have taken far too much responsibility for the side’s failings.
Brenton Sanderson at the Crows was within a kick of a grand final in 2012, while Guy McKenna has improved the results for the Gold Coast every year he has been in charge and made a genuine run at the finals this time around. Was it easier for the boards to simply take the word of the players and end the coach’s tenure rather than deal with a miss-firing playing list? Have these two boards taken the easy way out?
The Essendon and Hird saga rumbles on. It’s an outlier in the scheme of things as never before has an AFL coach subjected his club, players and supporters to this level of anger, frustration or held them in such contempt. Clearly he is a dead man walking and surely his position has become untenable.
There has been speculation around Brendan McCarthy at the Bulldogs, and talk of a fallout between Nathan Buckley and his players at Collingwood.
The rumblings at the Bulldogs, much like the Crows and Suns, started discontent among a number of senior players. Interestingly though, the board have gone the other way and decided to back the coach and give him the opportunity to improve his coaching style in 2015.
Buckley too has received unanimous support from the board and some of the playing group following a fallout over the past two years with a number of premiership stars who have since been moved on. In this instance the club has backed their coach completely and charged him with removing the players who he believes are hindering the club’s progression, which is the complete opposite of how the boards on the Gold Coast and Adelaide acted.
Sometimes honest player feedback can work to a club’s advantage – it famously did back in 2006 when Mark ‘Bomber’ Thompson and his playing group spoke some home truths about where each needed to get better. While it was very raw it had the desired result, with Thompson becoming a much better man manager while the playing group lifted their own work rate and intensity, which led to three premiership flags.
There is no set formula when it comes to hiring and firing coaches and it is a fine line sometimes between making the harsh call that works, like Fremantle did with Mark Harvey, or perhaps making the coach the fall guy for any number of internal problems.
But stability at any club is critical and boards need to make sure that the right decision is made, not the easy one.
Who’s in your ultimate team? Pick the best team and compete with other fans for daily prizes on Draftstars. For the best odds on the game try out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Think. Is this a bet you really want to place? Set a deposit limit.
Former Adelaide captain Rory Sloane has been forced into immediate retirement by the threat of further eye damage. Sloane, 34, had a second bout…
The umpires played on when it was "clearly a point" as Mitchell Hinge was rammed into the post with the ball. Ultimately, North ended…
Mark Keane got the shock of his life after this rushed behind. It made little difference to the score as Adelaide won by 57…
Fox Footy's Brad Johnson questioned whether Bigoa Nyuon could've got a touch to this Izak Rankine goal if he didn't pull up so early.
Taylor Walker was busy setting up goals for his teammates against North Melbourne. But he didn't need them for this brilliant solo effort.
Josh Rachele looked to be corralled against the boundary line, but he improvised to escape and set up Luke Pedlar for a goal.
