Hawthorn coach succession plan: Contract twist could see Alastair Clarkson remain at Hawks after 2022
Rival clubs eyeing Alastair Clarkson could be left disappointed due to a clause in his Hawthorn contract.
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Hawthorn president Jeff Kennett has dismissed suggestions senior people at the club would prefer Alastair Clarkson to coach elsewhere next season.
Kennett stressed on Wednesday morning the Hawks were firmly committed to a coaching handover that will see Clarkson honour the final year of his contract in 2022 before handing the reins to Sam Mitchell at the end of next season.
It emerged on Wednesday that Clarkson could yet remain at the Hawks in 2023 and 2024 in a consultative role under an agreement struck with the club several years ago.
If Clarkson was to fulfil the off-field role it would not necessarily be a full-time position.
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The revelations suggest that the Hawks have been thinking about life beyond Clarkson, a four-time premiership coach, since re-signing him to a four-year deal in 2018.
Mitchell was brought back from West Coast as an assistant coach at the end of 2018.
Kennett was responding to reports that several board members and some other senior people within the club wanted change now rather than wait until the end of next season.
“The decision by the board (about the succession plan) was unanimous,” Kennett told SEN. “We discussed it for a long, long time but came to an absolute unanimous decision.”
“(The) comments are just wrong … I haven’t had one person come to me with that suggestion (that some senior people wanted Clarkson to leave at the end of this season).”
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Kennett said Clarkson and Mitchell were “mature men” who wanted the best for Hawthorn, which he maintained was another year of a partnership before the handover.
“Clarko will be our coach next year,” he said.
“He will have his staff around him. Sam will continue as both development coach at Hawthorn, but also his role as coach of Box Hill.
“The reason we made him coach of Box Hill this year was to give him added experience in managing a team himself directly — which he will eventually do when Clarko leaves at the end of next year.
“The club understands precisely what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. If we can get another year developing Sam, he will make an excellent coach – hungry to deliver as Clarko was in 2004 when he came to us.”
Geelong’s Isaac Smith, who played in three premierships with Mitchell at the Hawks, said he wasn’t surprised with Hawthorn’s decision.
“I thought that might have been the angle they were taking,” Smith said on RSN. “It was probably only a matter of time.”
“I think it is a great opportunity for Sam.
“It’s funny … even when Sam was playing that I felt he would nearly prefer to be a senior coach rather than playing the game.
“He used to stay up most nights for three or four hours after the kids went to bed and he would be doing personal development in a sense of what could help him in the future when he became a coach. That was always in his sights, and now he has that opportunity.”
THE HAWK WHO FIXED CLARKO-WRIGHT RIFT
Marc McGowan
A key industry figure has dismissed claims that Alastair Clarkson and Graham Wright had an irreparable relationship breakdown in their last year together at Hawthorn.
The pair have spoken since Wright left the Hawks to become Collingwood’s football boss in February, in an indication they are still on good terms.
It’s believed their relationship would not be a stumbling block if the Magpies chose to pursue Clarkson as Nathan Buckley’s replacement.
Clarkson’s future has become a major talking point since Hawthorn’s shock announcement last week that club great Sam Mitchell would succeed him as senior coach from the 2023 season.
The four-time premiership coach was already being touted as an attractive option for rival clubs before that news.
While Clarkson has since stated he would see out his contract next year, the Hawks won’t stand in his way if he received an offer from a rival club to coach in 2022.
Clarkson has also been linked to the Carlton job, with incumbent David Teague saying he would be “comfortable” with the Blues speaking to Hawthorn’s outgoing coach, as long as they were “transparent”.
The longstanding Wright-Clarkson association, which engineered the Hawks’ 2008 and 2013-15 flags, was instantly touted as a key reason why Clarkson could replace Buckley.
But talk emerged of a falling-out between the two AFL heavyweights during Hawthorn’s Covid-19-related hub stay last year in the Barossa Valley.
It is believed the club’s football director Richie Vandenberg played a key role at the time in mending the rift.
Wright and Clarkson engaged in countless robust discussions throughout their working relationship and it is understood that last year was no different.
There remains a strong mutual respect between them and they are believed to have spoken inside the past two months. Their wives are also still close.
Wright was both the Hawks’ football and list boss when he resigned and those roles are now being filled by Rob McCartney and Mark McKenzie, respectively.
He was said to have made the shift away from Hawthorn and back to the club at which he played in the 1990 premiership to seek a fresh challenge.
Wright is on the Collingwood subcommittee charged with finding the club’s new coach, alongside CEO Mark Anderson, football director Paul Licuria, board member Peter Murphy and premiership star Luke Ball.
Mitchell was on the Pies’ radar before Hawthorn hatched its succession plan.
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