Ex-Diamonds coach Lisa Alexander’s bid for North Melbourne coaching job knocked back
A woman will one day be in charge of an AFL team, says the boss of the coaches’ association, after ex-netball coach Lisa Alexander’s bid for the North Melbourne job was rebuffed.
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It may not be former Australian Diamonds netball coach Lisa Alexander, but AFL Coaches’ Association chief executive officer Mark Brayshaw is adamant that a time will come when a men’s AFL team is coached by a woman.
North Melbourne rejected Alexander as a potential candidate for their vacant AFL head coaching role.
Alexander, who was head coach of Australia’s successful national netball team from 2011 until 2020, applied for the role which was vacated last month by Rhyce Shaw, saying she genuinely wanted the job at the Kangaroos and would bring a unique perspective to the game from a high performance point of view.
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Despite the Kangaroos knocking back the application, Brayshaw said the evolution of the game would without doubt see more women take on coaching roles.
“I have a strong view that an increasing percentage of the men who play AFL and a significant percentage of the women who play AFL would benefit if a bigger percentage of the coaching cohort were women,” he said.
“It would recognise the evolution of the players and in particular the rapid elevation of the women.
“The smart footy clubs have for a long while got women doctors, physiotherapists, psychologists and as many good, smart women as possible into their footy clubs and it seems to me it’s inevitable – and it will be a very good thing – when women arrive (in the coaching boxes).”
North Melbourne informed Alexander over email on Monday afternoon that she was not the right candidate for the job.
“I had a go, I put the CV in, I’ve been treated very professionally, in that they’ve looked at it and given me a little bit of feedback, which is obviously getting AFL experience and at this stage, they are looking for a senior AFL coach,” she said.
Alexander said she respected the process that North Melbourne had gone through in deciding not to pursue her as coach.
“I may not be the person they’re looking for, but at the end of the day, I want to make sure that all of our football teams around the country acknowledge that there could be a female out there who could be really good and could add to their programs,” she said.
“I put my hand up, I had a go, but if it’s not me, I certainly hope that I can pave the way in making people think differently for women who come after me, that’s the main thing.”
The former World Cup winning coach said she would now work towards gaining more experience in the football world.
“That’s part of what I’ll work towards, just making sure I go and do the things that I think are important for me to have a go,” she said.
“To be honest, I was pleased just to be taken seriously by North Melbourne, and I think that’s a step in the right direction.
“They’re very honoured in many respects that I would think about having a go, considering my coaching career with the Diamonds and what a great career that is and they were very pleased that I would take them seriously.”
Brayshaw, a former Kangaroo himself – and who has three of his four sons on AFL lists – said a lot had changed since his playing days in the early 1990s, which gave women more opportunity to come into the game.
But he said the code shouldn’t be in too much of a hurry to appoint women coaches, instead ensuring candidates had a lot of background knowledge and were provided with mentors and pathways.
“I remember (ex-Collingwood coach) Mick Malthouse saying to me that (coaching) is five per cent your playing career and the rest is whether you’re a good people manager, you’ve got experience, you know how to teach, how to lead; all those other terrific skills are critical,” Brayshaw said.
“But it’s my own opinion that the first thing you need is you must be a subject matter expert.
“The quicker women can become subject-matter experts and express enough interest in coaching and do all the programs, the better, because the men and the women players need the other half of the population coaching them.”
Collingwood AFLW ruck – and former Diamonds defender – Sharni Layton said it was difficult to know whether Alexander’s well-documented skills as a netball coach would transfer to the AFL.
“I don’t know what she knows about football,” Layton, who retired from netball in 2018 and has played with the Magpies since 2019, said.
“But I think if she’s got knowledge of the game, great, because you definitely do need knowledge of the game.
“I found the transition as an athlete really hard, because I found a lot of the skill sets in football were actually the opposite to netball, so I’ve had to retrain my brain around things I do on the field that are the opposite in netball, in terms of difference in timing and endurance and mindset.”
Layton – who won two World Cups and one Commonwealth Games gold medal under Alexander – said what her former coach did particularly well was that she surrounded herself with good people inside a holistic program.
“So being the head coach (of North Melbourne), she might not devise the game plan, but she might be a leader who delegates to good people,” Layton said.
“She created a really holistic program in the Diamonds, which is really important.”
Layton said what was standing in the way of there being more women coaches in Aussie Rules was the simple fact that there were so many more male coaches across all levels of football.
“It’s the exact same in netball for men coaches,” she said.
“It’s extremely hard to be a male coach in netball and they get criticised … someone like a Rob Wright who never played netball really had to prove himself and his knowledge because you do get judged, it’s the same flip of the coin there for women in football.”
Alexander said what she would bring to the role aside from her extensive high performance knowledge and winning culture, would be a different way of seeing things about the game.
“My observations from outside, and netball is very connected with the Olympic and Commonwealth Games sports particularly, we do a lot of cross work together as coaches and we learn off each other a lot more in high performance ways and how we put programs together and look after individual athletes.
“I genuinely wanted to have a go at doing it.
“Just like every girl at my age, played in the girlfriends and boyfriends’ team but the thing is I’ve been watching and been very closely aligned to football for a long time, it’s not like I don’t watch the game … I’ve been a very interested observer for a long time.”
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