Phil Walsh and Ken Hinkley are two obvious examples of why experience is so important in a coach.
It’s still early days for the former, but clearly he has made an impact, with what he estimated as 15 years and about 1000 hours in a coaches box.
Walsh’s predecessor, Brenton Sanderson, had about five years of experience before becoming head coach of Adelaide. He took them to within a goal of the preliminary final in his first year, and he has the highest winning percentage of any Crows coach to date.
Hinkley served as an assistant coach for a number of years across a variety of clubs, and since becoming top dog at Port, Hinkley has made enormous improvements and given them a trademark style.
Under his tenure the Power have made two finals appearances, winning a final against Geelong in his first year, and last year they took the Hawks to the line.
Despite a poor start to 2015, they are expected to finish top four – certainly in the top eight.
The results achieved by Paul Roos, John Longmire and Ross Lyon, who all served as assistants for four or five years, again show experience wins out. Roos has two grand finals and a premiership, Longmire won a premiership in his second season and broke the Swans’ record winning streak, and Lyon has coached three sides to grand finals.
Meanwhile, Nathan Buckley has not improved Collingwood since Mick Malthouse’s departure. Quite the opposite in fact. This is due to his quick promotion: two years as an assistant coach meant Buckley was under-prepared.
The numbers are clear – coaching experience wins out.
So why is Malthouse failing at Carlton? Simple, he is at a rebuilding club. I would suggest that he is struggling to build the club up from the depths that they are unfortunately at. Sometimes the coach isn’t necessarily to blame.
Clearly, as coaches retire, clubs should only take on the club protege if they have done the hard yards first.
Gecko
Guest
Franko you're being a bit harsh on Rocket Eade, writing him off after two games. Eade's results at Footscray and the Swans were excellent. Given time, and a fit Gary Ablett, he'll get results at the Suns.
Jack Smith
Roar Guru
Agree entirely. Part of what I am trying to say. You need the experience.
Rob
Guest
Collingwood biggest mistake - not allowing Buckley to be an assistant at North for a couple of years. Eddie couldn't bear to see fig jam in colours other than black and White so got rid of an experienced coach for him. Better move would have been to let bucks go to North for three years and learn about the game from a non collingwood perspective then moved Malthouse aside for him. Would have saved mock the embarisment of Carlton too
Jack Smith
Roar Guru
Some of it poorly mis worded mastermind I give you that. What you have said is what I have meant in those instances. I thought the same thing when I wrote the Lyons sides however a side is still a side. I did not say three teams/clubs which would be different. Think we are pulling at strings however. Power I have got wrong the club they beat but correct in terms of the message it sent to the AFL - they were here. Who I was thinking in the instance of Geelong was when Fremantle beat them (I knew it was an interstate team). My fault for believing in memory. Longmire's record does make sense. People break records, he broke the Swans' club's record winning streak. Your way works too but so does mine as well.
Lamby
Roar Rookie
The chance of success for a coach is probably a 'bell curve' of a graph measuring success compared to time coaching. The chance of success rises until about 10 years, plateaus to about 20 years then drops away. I think coaching is a young person's game - it requires too much commitment and the older you get you lose that drive to put in the commitment (see Malcolm Blight, Denis Pagen, Sheedy,etc)
Franko
Guest
"The numbers are clear – coaching experience wins out. So why is Malthouse failing at Carlton? Simple, he is at a rebuilding club." And of Rocket Eade....???? If it was a simple as "get an experienced coach" every club would do it. There is no magic formula, you have to get the right coach at the right club at the right time.
Avatar
Roar Guru
A couple of mistakes in this article. "Under his tenure the Power have made two finals appearances, winning a final against Geelong in his first year, and last year they took the Hawks to the line." The Power beat Collingwood in their first final before losing to Geelong in the first semi-final. "The results achieved by Paul Roos, John Longmire and Ross Lyon, who all served as assistants for four or five years, again show experience wins out. Roos has two grand finals and a premiership, Longmire won a premiership in his second season and broke the Swans’ record winning streak, and Lyon has coached three sides to grand finals." I'm sure you may have meant "Roos has two grand finals for one premiership" (the Swans made two Grand Finals, not three as suggested in this article) in regards to his success at the Sydney Swans. "...broke the Swans' record winning streak" doesn't make sense because Longmire was coaching the Swans, not against them. What you may have meant was "led the Swans on a record winning streak". And lastly, with "...Lyon has coached three sides to grand finals", you could have said "...Lyon has coached two [unique] sides (St Kilda and Fremantle) to three Grand Finals".
Wilson
Roar Guru
Agree I think Buckley may have need more time as a assistant coach before he took over and it my have helped to have gone to a different club and be a assistant there to get a view outside of the Collingwood World. that is why I think the Simon Goodwin with Melbourne should work better as by the end of Paul Roo's time he would have done 7 year as a Assistant at two different club and if you go with what you have stated up top in theory he should be fine as he has done over 5 years.