Alastair Clarkson-Sam Mitchell succession plan has potential to be a hell ride for Jeff Kennett

Can Hawthorn spare its fans a ‘15-month hell ride’ by convincing Alastair Clarkson to step away from his coaching role 12 months earlier? That is the $1.2 million question.

The arrangement put to Alastair Clarkson for 2022 isn’t a succession plan as much as a 12-month severance package he can only accept if he doesn’t cut and run.

Succession plans are done with the absolute buy-in of both parties who commit to a strong relationship that betters the club and everyone involved.

Even Mick Malthouse pledged to make Nathan Buckley the most prepared coach in the AFL on the day they shook hands on a succession plan — a project that later turned pear-shaped.

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Alastair Clarkson has every intention of coaching out his contract, as he and his manager James Henderson have constantly stated.

But there is every chance it will be a 15-month hell ride given the way the deal was brokered.

On the morning of the club’s press conference to announce the deal, Clarkson is believed to have issued the same kind of verbal backhander that he did when former chief executive Ian Robson resigned all those years ago.

Clarkson accused one of the men who had brokered the deal with Sam Mitchell of being “spineless”, although with a choice expletive attached.

The four-time premiership coach clearly felt blindsided by the decision to go with the four-time premiership player when he had hoped to expedite his own contract extension weeks earlier.

Four-time premiership player Sam Mitchell came back to Hawthorn as an assistant coach from West Coast Eagles in 2019.

Clarkson has long jousted with president Jeff Kennett and chief executive Justin Reeves, with varying interpretations on how strained those relationships have become.

But what is clear from everyone who knows Clarkson is that he has no intention of walking away from his contract and $1.2 million deal.

Some of it is due to stubbornness and some of it is due to timing.

He has long harboured a desire to spend 12 months on an international fact-finding mission and with his son in Year 12 next year it won’t be 2022.

So if he takes up another role at Collingwood or Carlton that dream is dashed.

As one senior industry figure who would know said on Tuesday: “He will stay at Hawthorn just to give Jeff the shits.”

Mitchell and Clarkson have a respectful working relationship, going all the way back to the former’s playing days.

Mitchell’s deal was brokered not by his long-time manager Peter Lenton but a confidante from the Box Hill board, with Clarkson in the dark as Mitchell made his power play.

Clarkson then had no option but to honour his contract unless he wanted to torch $1.2 million.

He says he and Mitchell — two stubborn and proud men — will get on with business next year.

Mitchell was advised at the end of 2019 to coach Box Hill.

While the move was to round off his coaching apprenticeship, it has also given Clarkson and his heir apparent some space.

The only man more stubborn than Clarkson and Mitchell is Kennett, so it is hard to see how he could pay out his super-coach to provide clear air in 2022.

He has never minded some competitive tension in his workplaces; in truth he has actively encouraged it.

Across the season there have again been glimpses of Clarkson’s coaching mastery, even as the Hawks board lost faith in his capacity to win the next flag for this club.

Clarkson is happy to empower his assistants, but took back some of the club’s team defence after the bye and the Hawks have beaten Sydney and GWS and drawn with the Demons in that six-week stretch.

Clarkson and Mitchell have enjoyed remarkable success at Hawthorn over the journey.

The Melbourne clash demonstrated Clarkson’s full range of powers as his side out-tackled and outsmarted The Demons.

Tom Mitchell lauded that change to the team defence on the Sunday Footy Show this weekend.

But for all the plaudits, the reality is plain.

Hawthorn rubber-stamped his vision to secure another premiership after the three-peat and outlaid vast draft capital for Jaeger O’Meara, Chad Wingard and Tom Mitchell.

The Hawks haven’t won a single final since (they lost in straight sets in 2018) and arguably wasted last season when they believed they were contenders but won five home-and-away games.

No one doubts his individual moments of brilliance or his engagement with the team this year – more time on the track, more time teaching the kids.

But as unbelievable as it is, the feeling from some within the club that Clarkson’s best coaching days are behind him has become evident by their decision to move him on.

Originally published as Alastair Clarkson-Sam Mitchell succession plan has potential to be a hell ride for Jeff Kennett