‘More stressful than ever’: Which AFL coaches are under the pump in 2021?

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‘More stressful than ever’: Which AFL coaches are under the pump in 2021?

By Jake Niall

In a season of coaching intrigue, Nathan Buckley, Simon Goodwin and Leon Cameron are the senior coaches who enter the season with the highest degree of uncertainty about their futures.

Buckley is coming out of contract in his 10th season. Goodwin and Cameron both have contracts for 2022, but neither of the latter pair is assured of retaining his job without strong results.

Under the pump: Simon Goodwin, Nathan Buckley and Leon Cameron.

Under the pump: Simon Goodwin, Nathan Buckley and Leon Cameron.Credit: The Age

Goodwin has what industry sources say is a “watertight” contract – in other words, one that commits the Demons to paying him, more or less in full, for 2022 as well as this season.

Cameron, who took Greater Western Sydney to a grand final in 2019, is subject to the AFL-backed policy of a six-month payout, even though, on paper, his deal stretches for two seasons. The AFL has pushed for six-month payouts for coaches, to protect clubs from hefty terminations in an era of slashed football spending.

Coaches dealt with unprecedented challenges in COVID-ravaged season 2020 but all kept their jobs, notwithstanding John Worsfold’s planned handover and Rhyce Shaw stepping away for personal reasons. Will that be the case in 2021?

Nathan Buckley

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While Buckley does not have any protection contractually, his recent track record is stronger, having narrowly lost a grand final in 2018, finished a kick off a grand final in 2019 and made the top six in a season ravaged by the coronavirus. Conversely, he has been in the job longer without a flag and the wounded Magpies are in a list refresh.

Collingwood’s stated position is that the club will wait to let the season unfold before any discussions about Buckley’s contract, that they will not be rushed and that Buckley and the club and coach have an open dialogue in which the parties communicate regularly.

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“The discussions will unfold over the course of the year,” Collingwood chief executive Mark Anderson said of Buckley’s contractual situation. “It’s exactly like the process he went through for the last contract extension ]after 2018].”

Anderson said the Magpies were not in a hurry to deal with Buckley’s situation. “We’re not in a rush, we don’t need to be in any rush. He’s energised for the season ahead.” The chief executive said there was “a high degree of trust” between the club and Buckley.

Buckley’s position, clearly, will be shaped by results, the direction that the decision-makers desire and the question – which every club periodically asks – of whether there is a superior alternative.

New football boss Graham Wright, an ex-teammate of Buckley’s, will be a major influence in a post-Eddie McGuire Collingwood, in which the next president is yet to be confirmed (Peter Murphy and Mark Korda sharing the position for several more weeks).

Alastair Clarkson

The other senior coach whose position is bound to attract considerable intrigue this season is from Wright’s alma mater, Hawthorn, where Alastair Clarkson has four flags in his resume and two further years to run on his hefty contract (more than million dollars, pre-COVID-19 cuts), but whose president Jeff Kennett has already suggested that Clarkson is unlikely to coach beyond 2022 with the Hawks.

Clarkson also is coaching a team in the throes of a substantial rebuild of a playing list and which has little prospect of playing finals in 2021, as the Hawks turn their eyes to youth.

If Hawthorn can hold Clarkson to his contract and vice-versa, it seems improbable – given his service and Kennett’s blunt assessment – that the club would stand in the coach’s path if he wanted to move to another club at the end of this year.

Clarkson casts a shadow over his coaching comrades, by dint of the widespread view that he and the Hawks are in the twilight of a highly successful marriage.

Simon Goodwin

If Goodwin is best placed contractually, his position is arguably the most parlous of the aforementioned trio. This is due to a combination of Melbourne’s expectations, the failures of 2019 in particular (and 2020 to a lesser extent) and the pressures on the hierarchy, whose president Glenn Bartlett faces the members and who have key, highly sought players coming out of contract either this year (Clayton Oliver) or next (Christian Petracca).

The notion that Melbourne’s board discussed removing Goodwin last year is not correct, according to club sources, who say this was never a consideration. But the prospect of a payout offers the coach scant protection – the Demons are far more solvent these days (they are an unassisted club in the new austerity of AFL) and Goodwin is far from the Clarkson-John Longmire bracket of salaries.

If Buckley, Goodwin and Cameron have completely different challenges this season, they also share obvious issues: game styles or methods that hampered progress last year and, in particular, weaknesses in attack, where there aren’t reliable key forwards or goalkickers.

The Demons will begin the season without Ben Brown, their primary recruit and target in attack, and Sam Weideman, presenting Goodwin with a challenge to manufacture scores. His crucial recruits, thus, will be assistant coaches in Adem Yze and Mark Williams. The Magpies again front up without an A-grade, bona fide key forward or quality crumber, while GWS have lost Jeremy Cameron to Geelong.

Damien Hardwick

Richmond’s Hardwick has no such concerns, the Tigers owning Tom Lynch and a game style that has flourished in the finals furnace. For Hardwick, the competition’s current alpha coach, the question is about relationships: will his bond with his senior players, or the team cohesion that has been so successful, be compromised at all by his relationship with a staffer in Richmond’s commercial department following a marriage break-up?

Richmond coach Damien Hardwick keeps an eye on pre-season training.

Richmond coach Damien Hardwick keeps an eye on pre-season training.Credit: Getty Images

The Tigers are in discussions with Hardwick’s management about a new multi-year contract (his expires this year) and there is confidence within that there will be no fallout from his personal situation. What was easily forgotten in the Hardwick mini-saga of summer was that he had the leverage of being out of contract.

Ben Rutten

Essendon’s Rutten, meanwhile, begins his coaching career without a honeymoon, due to the messy handover arrangement with John Worsfold. Rutten needs time, given the reality that their list profile is considerably younger without Joe Daniher, Adam Saad, Orazio Fantasia and Conor McKenna.

Chris Scott

Geelong’s Chris Scott, as ever, will begin with the fiercest pressure from his own tribe (fans), having a team that has gained experience in Cameron, Isaac Smith and Shaun Higgins: Having sold the (draft) farm, it is probably flag or bust for Geelong in 2021 and 2022.

Broadly, coaches have never seemed as vulnerable to the unique stresses of their job. Gillon McLachlan aside, the first 18 – the name Coaches’ Association boss Mark Brayshaw attaches to the senior coaches – wear more opprobrium and scrutiny than anyone within the AFL’s brutopia.

Buckley, Hardwick and Goodwin had marriage separations confirmed in 2020, while North’s Rhyce Shaw walked away from his job for personal reasons, as the coaches dealt with the combination of fewer staff and more responsibility during the pandemic.

“Most of us are normal human beings. We’re no better or tougher than anyone.”

Brisbane coach Chris Fagan

The extraordinary traumas of Mark Thompson, Dani (formerly Dean) Laidley, James Hird, the late Phil Walsh and Dean Bailey underscore the weight carried by senior coaches.

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“I’m quite concerned, if you look at the coaches in the last 10-12 years and what’s happened in their lives,” said Brisbane coach Chris Fagan. “It’s not all good.”

Fagan observed of the current landscape: “It’s getting harder because we’ve got less staff and it’s gotten more stressful than ever.

“Most of us are normal human beings. We’re no better or tougher than anyone.”

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