AFL Coach Commitment Index

AFL Coach Commitment Index

GuyWhoLikesSport

In the pre-finals bye, it’s worth doing a quick check in on how each team feels about their coach. A relationship with a coach is like any relationship. There are ups and downs. Some are together for too long, some don’t give each other a chance. Some are flings, and some are all loved up… for now.  

 

In that spirit, I figured why not do a Commitment Index for each team and coach. How committed are they to one another? Are they both in Ibiza for another week and want a sure thing if they have no luck elsewhere? Or are they looking for houses and trying for kids? 

 

Honeymoon Phase  

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Ross Lyon  

 

Brad Scott 

 

 Adam Kingsley  

 

Damien Hardwick  

 

Alistair Clarkson  

 

These are the teams and coaches in the Honeymoon Phase. What will soon become annoying is still endearing. What will become intolerable is still entirely tolerable. If you’re in one of these relationships, you’d still watch Below Deck together rather than sitting on your phone or going to bed and tearily watching AFL360 montages of your favourite retiring players.  

 

One coach, Hardwick, hasn’t even coached a game but has a 6-year deal and thankfully is no longer burnt out.  

 

The other 4 are at the tail end of their first years in charge and all have had varying degrees of success. The Saints and Giants will both play finals, considered unlikely at the start of the year, in large part due to their hot new coaches.  

 

In the case of Scott and Clarkson, neither will play finals but there are still reasons for optimism. The Bombers have massively overperformed this season despite an embarrassing last two games and appear genuinely dynamic going forward, despite limited cattle.  

 

The Roos can say that they didn’t have their master coach for most of the season because he was dealing with accusations of being Pauline Hanson’s shorter son. Beyond that, North seem to be regenerating and have ended what was an enormously demoralising season with impressive effort, even getting a win in their last game. 

 

All these coaches and clubs are very much “in like”, and possibly falling in love. 

 

Loved Up 

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Sam Mitchell  

Paul Hasleby: West Coast Eagles must look to Hawthorn and Sam Mitchell for the blueprint to their rebuild | The West Australian

 

Craig McRae 

Yes, these two coaches occupy opposite ends of the ladder but boy oh boy are they in love. They’re out of the Honeymoon phase but they still like each other and aren’t yet annoyed by the sound of each other’s breathing.  

 

Congrats to them, I guess. 

 

Craig McRae appears to occupy the position that Jesus Christ occupies in Catholicism to Pies fans. They love his enthusiasm. The players buy in. They never quit. Never count the Pies out. They’ve been even more than that this year, given they’ve been dominant and finished the season first on the ladder. 

 

That’s the easiest kind of team to root for.  

 

Beyond that, he’s done a good job of stoking the gigantic chip that resides on every single Collingwood fan’s shoulder. In fact, he strikes as almost American in his desire to grow an (already massive) “us against the world” mentality among Collingwood supporters and players alike. 

 

Sam Mitchell, on the other hand, has the Hawks sitting in 16th, above North Melbourne and West Coast. But the Hawks have won 7 games, including against Brisbane and the Saints, while going life and death against Richmond and showing real endeavour throughout the campaign. Sam Mitchell is a favourite son returning home, and he’s done nothing to disgrace his name (beyond all that he did as a player, of course). 

 

‘Til Death Do Us Part 

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Chris Scott 

 

 Luke Beveridge 

 

John Longmire  

 

 

These are couples that are stuck.  

 

One, Chris Scott and Geelong, are happily stuck. They’re looking for houses, starting a family etc. They’re happy. Stable. Everyone makes good money. Their biggest worry is whether to actually step in and buy Paramount Plus because they want to watch The Offer or whether 7 streaming services are enough. Even despite not making finals, there is nary a jungle drum in sight. 

 

John Longmire and Sydney are also basically in this spot. The fact that Sydney is going to play finals, after a truly average start to the season, is a testament to Longmire’s stability and capacity as a coach. Longmire is like Stephen Graham: reliably excellent, occasionally spine-tingling. 

 

Luke “Kendall Roy” Beveridge is a different story. He seems to run the Western Bulldogs like they’re the Victorian government. He walks into a room and says, “this is what we’re going to do” as opposed to “okay what should we do”. The Rory Lobb experiment is Beveridge’s Living Plus – good in a pitch meeting, impossible to extract any value from it. 

 

That Beveridge was apparently overruled by Chris Grant and Ameet Bains on the retention of Rohan Smith might be a sign that Beveridge’s hold over the entire footy club is slipping.  

 

Or maybe it’s just a blip and regularly scheduled programming will return soon, like in The Godfather when the Corleones appear to be slipping before Michael has every rival whacked and struts his way to Vegas. 

 

If You Like It Then You Should Have Put a [Medal Around It] 

 

Ken Hinkley 

  

Chris Fagan  

 

Matthew Nicks  

 

These are three coaches that probably need premierships soon to keep their jobs, just like boyfriends who had best become husbands quick smart if they want to stay with their partners.  

 

Hinkley and Fagan are probably in different spots to Nicks as they need flags in the next 2 years or they are almost certainly out.  

 

Even if Hinkley wins, he might be on the way out. The fact that he only got another 2 years, after being forced to coach on the last year of his deal, and after the season that Port just had basically out of nowhere is a testament to David Koch being the pettiest person this side of Regina George.  

 

Fagan is treated far less poorly by Brisbane, but Brisbane have been very good for a very long time. At some point, if you don’t win a premiership, while the list is still good the Lions might consider someone else as a jolting presence.  

 

For Nicks, the clock is ticking less slowly.  

 

He has developed the Crows into an offensive juggernaut this season and they mostly missed the finals due to misfortune. But he needs to make finals next year, and probably contend in the year or two after that. I’ve written before that this season feels like the year before the year before. Something needs to happen next year. 

 

We’ll See How the Couples Weekend Goes 

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Simon Goodwin  

 

Michael Voss 

 

These relationships are maybe fine, maybe on the rocks.  

 

How can they hold up in the pressure cooker environment of a couples’ weekend, i.e., the finals? Will they stand up or crumble?  

 

For Voss, every Blues fan I know had him fired after the first half of the season. Their marauding second half of the year has definitely kept him his job, but a quick exit from the finals would certainly heap the pressure right back on him. The fact that it’s Carlton, the second most trigger happy entity in the world after the US Army, does not help his cause.  

 

Goodwin, on the other hand, appears to have an inexhaustible list of behavioural issues that Glen Bartlett loves to bring up. Bartlett’s campaign feels like one of a scorned ex-lover going full scorched earth.  

 

Jack Watts would know a thing or two about that.  

 

The fact that Goodwin got 2 years tacked onto his contract is an indication of the belief that Melbourne currently has in Goodwin, but we’ve seen contract extensions handed out and quickly rescinded before. Particularly when behavioural issues are at play. 

 

Given the list, and the fact that it seems inevitable that Bartlett will dredge up some new issue in the offseason, Goodwin has to win again soon. Either in the court of defamation or the footy field. 

 

Not Even Going on The Couples Weekend Because They Fight Too Much 

 

Justin Longmuir  

 

Justin Longmuir didn’t even get invited to the pressure cooker. Their friends know that they’ll fight so they figured there was no point. It feels a bit that way with Freo and Longmuir.  

 

At the start of the year, they were a boring side.  

 

Later in the year they started playing footy that didn’t make you want to gouge your eyes out and had a bit more success, but still not enough.  

 

This feels like it’s bound to end in one way and one way only, but there is far less smoke around Longmuir than one would expect given how this season has gone. That’s the only reason he’s not in the category below. 

 

Tommy Getting Made in Goodfellas 

 

Andrew McQualter 

 

Adam Simpson  

 

Dead men walking. I know this isn’t a relationship analogy because it is apt. Some portly Italian is cocking the gun for these two. McQualter has tried after Hardwick but it feels almost impossible that Richmond will stick with him given how happily they put the cue in the rack against the Bulldogs.  

 

As a Tigers fan, I’m hoping for Chris Newman. 

 

Adam Simpson is cooked. He’s been cooked all year. He doesn’t appear to be overly perturbed by all the losing. I cannot fathom that West Coast are keeping him around. Returning to the relationship premise, this couple has been together too long and can’t see what everyone else can see: it’s time to wrap it up.