With a number of AFL clubs considering new mentors for next year, I thought it useful to assess who are the greatest coaches since 1945.
To do this, I narrowed down the number of coaches with the criteria that they must have coached for at least ten years and have delivered two or more premierships.
The weighting of metrics used are the number of premierships (weight of 35%), win-loss ratio in finals (30% weight), win-loss ratio in home and away (25% weight), number of premierships coached by proteges of the coach (7.5% weight) and number of Brownlow Medal winners that a coach has overseen (weighting of 2.5%).
On this basis, I have ranked the coaches as follows:
1. Norm Smith
2. Tom Hafey
3. Allan Jeans
4. Ron Barassi
5. John Kennedy
6. Leigh Matthews
7. Kevin Sheedy
8. Alastair Clarkson
9. Dick Reynolds
10. David Parkin
11. Damian Hardwick
12. Mick Malthouse
13. Dennis Pagan
14. Malcolm Blight
15. Reg Hickey
16. Perce Bentley
17. Mark Thompson
18. Phonse Kyne
Nathan Buckley and Mick Malthouse (Photo by Hamish Blair/Getty Images)
Unsurprisingly, Norm Smith is king of the coaches, with six premierships for Melbourne in their golden run from 1955 to 1964. Also of note is his outstanding win-loss ratio in finals, at 2:1, which exceeded his overall home and away ratio of 1.29:1.
Most of these coaches have win-loss ratios in home and away exceeding that of finals but it seems that the bigger the occasion, the more Smith’s coaching thrived. Where Smith was not as successful was in producing premiership coaches and Brownlow Medalists, although with a total team-first ethos, the latter was not a huge consideration.
Interestingly, in second place is Tom Hafey. Apart from his four premierships, Hafey had a successful finals win-loss ratio of 1.5:1, to go alongside his 1.88:1 win-loss ratio in home and away matches.
Moreover, Hafey was successful in producing premiership-winning proteges, notably Kevin Sheedy.
Surprisingly, Allan Jeans is ahead of Ron Barassi, with the latter generally regarded as the doyen of modern coaches. Jeans has the slight edge over Barassi in finals win-loss performance and a clearer advantage in home and away win-loss ratio.
Barassi slots comfortably in number four however, followed by John Kennedy.
There is something of a logjam in the queue with, for example, David Parkin ranked tenth and Mick Malthouse 12th, even though there is not much difference in the scores between these two and the first couple.
Like coaching itself, this exercise is a game of inches. Once we get past the first 13, where there is little room to manouevre, there is a significant gap in scores.
Of the current crop two make the cut, Alastair Clarkson and Damian Hardwick are at eighth and 11th place respectively. Clarkson is one of the fewer coaches with a finals win-loss ratio greater than his overall home and away ratio, and the same can be said of , which is a tribute to their success and longevity. Should either of them continue to deliver premierships, that will put them in rarefied air.
In addition, it should be noted that neither have really had the chance to produce their own dynasties of successful premiership coaches.
Johnno
Roar Rookie
He could’ve been another Neil Balme, not a coach. Lucky he’s Victorian so he gets more kudos than others. As Sheedy said....he’s got a lot of mileage out of one premiership.
Kick to Kick
Roar Rookie
Roos was never a great tactical coach and might even himself agree with that assessment, surrounding himself with great assistants. A good manager compensates for his weaknesses. He won just one premiership which is why he’s not on this list. Nevertheless he in one of the, if not the most influential coach of this century. That’s because he introduced fresh and now enduring ideas about team culture, leadership and player ownership of success. That reform took a Swans team with limited player talent to a flag - but more than that was highly influential on similar culture shifts after reviews at Geelong, Hawthorn and Richmond.
Thom Roker
Roar Guru
Lol. I’m neither young nor half-educated. At best it’s the amused ambivalence of a middle-aged educator deflecting miscast aspersions.
J.T. Delacroix
Guest
The arrogance of half-educated youth, Roker. You’re a prime example.
adhitya0710
Roar Rookie
True - The premiership is yet to lose Clarko's influence since 2013.
Clear as mud
Guest
4 flags in 8 seasons tends to have that effect!
Thom Roker
Roar Guru
I've written about coaching trees and have a long term research project on the subject. I invite you to read what I've written in my archive. Hafey is proving an interesting study because he is credited with influencing many coaches indirectly. Kennedy was the greatest for mine, though Jeans influenced a lot of coaches
Clear as mud
Guest
living in Sydney, I never understood this obsession with memberships
Clear as mud
Guest
I don’t know The argument is: 1. If you are going to score for good offspring, do you also have to score for duds? 2. If the answer to 1 is “yes”, do ghe maths… Prefer to stay in the problem space for a bit longer, and as opposed to jumping into anecdotal rankings
Clear as mud
Guest
So now we’re looking for “coaching grandkids” The goalposts are starting to get a bit wobbly here And while I love TJ, I always imagined the reason we only made the finals once when he was coach - And won the flag - was because Sheedy was working on the skills side for the Tiges. Biggest mistake we made was not reading Sheeds as the best option out of Royce, Francis, KB, Bones, Sprouley, Swooper, Pattinson etc. Oh well… Also Carlton’s implosion that year left the door open.
Thom Roker
Roar Guru
Who produced the worst coaches? Hafey or Jeans? Leigh Matthews coached a couple of premiership coaches, although I'm not sure Mark Williams would say Lethal was his guiding mentor. Tony Shaw, Alan Richardson, Justin Leppitsch, Michael Voss, Brad Scott and Chris Scott are others that come to mind. Did the others have that many failed coaches?
Thom Roker
Roar Guru
I'm from a Tigers family who repudiated the club in the mid-80s because of their coaching carousel and in particular their treatment of Premiership coach Tony Jewell. My old man simply wouldn't allow us to follow Richmond, the club he played junior footy for, so we had to follow the Bears. He was right. Richmond sucked for a long, long time after sacking TJ, an event commonly attributed to the demise of the club's culture. As for Mick Malthouse, he himself has paid tribute to Hafey as a guiding mentor, although he first played under Allen Jeans at the Saints. He played the most footy under Tony Jewell, who played most of his footy under Tommy Hafey.
Clear as mud
Guest
Easy, non-Tiger. TJ was a lucky bugger who got sacked twice by his own club. Malthouse... one season at Richmond under T-Shirt... 9 games. I would exclude that from your impressive maths. Sheedy. Absolutely. BUt I feel like Sheeds was gunna do it no matter what. Crafty little genius. Visionary plumber. Toby Greene etc etc
Clear as mud
Guest
of course he was great. he is my hero. but should there be marks off for breeding dud coaches?
Macca
Roar Rookie
"It happened all the time in the early days of the draft" Who? When? Buckley only avoided the draft because he had to go to Brisbane.
Thom Roker
Roar Guru
The Lions had sellout crowds for years once they started making finals and winning most home games. You couldn’t get a ticket to home games. The Suns were getting 25K to a game early days and the stadium can be expanded to 40K as it was configured for the Comm Games. The region is the fastest growing big the country and the sport is growing in participation even faster. Sponsorship was going really well pre-Covid and the club manages the stadium, so it gets income from events like the cricket and music gigs. Comparing the club that’s been around since before your great grandparents were born with a club only a little older than my kid in primary school is a false equivalency.
Thom Roker
Roar Guru
What an obtuse little fellow you are. Such limited imagination though.
Thom Roker
Roar Guru
It happened all the time in the early days of the draft. Even Nathan Buckley dodged the draft at first. The Bears tried to draft players who wouldn’t go to the Gold Coast. Sometimes a player would take a year or two to be persuaded and players rarely stayed for their entire careers. The great Haydn Bunton won 3 Brownlows, then left mid-career to play in the WAFL and played his final season in the SANFL.
George Apps
Roar Rookie
Very well said!
Dusty does Danger
Roar Rookie
Chuck - don’t count Hardwick, his not really rated.