AFL Top 100: The coaching merry go-round

Season 2023 will see the return of three coaches back into the fold, and the debut of a fourth. The quest for experienced and successful coaches has led to the return to coaching of Alistair Clarkson (North Melbourne), Ross Lyon (St Kilda) and Brad Scott (Essendon).

The wealth of experience that Clarkson (17 years at Hawthorn) and Lyon (five years at St Kilda and eight years at Fremantle) gained in their previous coaching stints means that they return as the two most senior coaches in the AFL.

Clarkson coached 390 games at Hawthorn and currently sits in 13th position of the AFL’s all-time Top 100 coaches and a normal season of 22 games will take him to equal 12th with the legendary John Kennedy who coached both Hawthorn and North Melbourne over a 32 year period starting in 1957.

Lyon last coached at Fremantle in 2019 and has also coached over 300 games (305). A normal coaching season for him would take him past John Northey who coached at five different AFL clubs during the period 1985 to 1998.

Lyon currently sits in 21st position on the Top 100 list.

The return of these senior coaches does not appear to do Carlton or their coach Michael Voss any favours: Over his long career, Alistair Clarkson had his most success against three teams including Carlton where he won 75% of all his encounters with the Navy Blues.

His success rate against Michael Voss was also the second highest of all current coaches, winning on four out of five occasions (80%).

Although Carlton is not one of the three teams that Ross Lyon has a 75% win rate against, their coach Michael Voss has never won a game against a team coached by Lyon in five encounters, a case of the Lyon having it over the Lion.

On the other side of the coin, Lyon has won only 25 percent of his match ups with Alastair Clarkson and Adam Simpson.

And what about Damien Hardwick with a perfect three out of three Grand Finals? He had wins in Richmond’s three games against the new coaches: Sam Mitchell (Hawthorn 2) and Craig McRae (Collingwood 1) to boast a 100% strike rate against the “newbies” but next on the list is Micheal Voss who has won only 1 of 7 encounters against the most senior current coach last year.

Hardwick’s ‘Achilles Heel” appears to be Ross Lyon and the Scott twins (Chris and Brad). Having won only 16 of 43 battles against the trio.

After 11 finals series and two premierships, Chris Scott has no reason to fear anyone. His remarkable record of having a better than 50% success rate against every team will be hard to beat.

With 200 wins and a winning ratio of just over 70%, he has had his most successes over Western Bulldogs, Gold Coast and (you guessed it!) Carlton!

The only coach who retired with a better than 50% success rate against him was Collingwood’s Nathan Buckley, and Sam Mitchell won their 2022 battle for a 100% success rate.

Michael Voss has won only 1 of 5 encounters against John Longmire, the losing Sydney coach in this seasons Grand Final.

Surprisingly, Longmire has his worst winning record against current coaches with Gold Coast’s Stuart Dew, followed closely by Luke Beveridge and Alistair Clarkson.

The other returning coach, Brad Scott has an impressive record against Melbourne, having won 11 of their 12 meetings. He has also beaten Chris Fagan on 3 out of 4 occasions, but Michael Voss (4/6) is next on the list!