Former Koroit and North Warrnambool coach Adam Dowie reveals the best teams he’s coached

Adam Dowie is a legend of the Hampden league, guiding three teams to six premierships. He reveals the best team he’s coached including two AFL players who impressed him in the early and later stages of their careers.

Adam Dowie’s team is full of talent from the Hampden league. Picture: Supplied.

When you’ve coached so many premierships in one league, compiling a best 22 can be an almost impossible task.

Just ask Hampden league legend Adam Dowie.

Dowie was not only one of the best coaches in the league of the past 25 years but ranked as second, and in the role of assistant coach, in the best country footy players and coaches of the past 25 years.

He guided three teams, Terang Mortlake, Warrnambool and Koroit to premierships in 2004, 2005, 2010, 2014, 2015 and 2016.

Former North Warrnambool coach Adam Dowie. Picture: Supplied

When he left Koroit he set the club up for a further six years of dominance, winning seven premierships in a row from 2014 to 2022.

The Saints success cost Dowie further premiership wins when he went to North Warrnambool and guided the team to grand finals in 2019, 2022 and 2023 as the Eagles lost them all.

Dowie said his team tried to portray the success of all four teams he coached to either grand finals or premiership glory.

SEE THE TEAM ABOVE.

“It’s a very difficult task,” he said.

“There’s some excellent players left out, I was caught in the predicament between the players they were/or were to become versus how they performed and where they were at when I coached them. I also tried to get a sort of even spread across the four clubs.

“Koroit is a heavy side and rightly so.”

Port Adelaide’s Willem Drew won three premierships with Koroit before he played in the AFL. Photo by Janelle St Pierre/AFL Photos via Getty Images

The Saints have nine players in the squad, headlined by Jeremy Hausler and Dallas Mooney who played in Koroit’s seven straight premierships.

Ben Goodall, who won nine premierships in his career with the Saints, is also included.

Koroit’s current coach Chris McLaren has also been picked alongside Sam Dobson, one of the best forwards in the Hampden league over the past decade.

Nathan Vardy was a lock on Adam Dowie’s best team after winning an AFL premiership and playing well with North Warrnambool. Picture Yuri Kouzmin

One player Dowie had to pick was current Port Adelaide midfielder Willem Drew who impressed him during his time at Koroit.

“He played in three flags before he was 18,” he said.

“He was best on ground in 2016 before being drafted to Port Adelaide.”

Drew isn’t the only ex-AFL player to make it with premiership player Nathan Vardy also named in the team for his time at North Warrnambool.

North Warrnambool has five players, Warrnambool has four and Terang Mortlake has four.

Dowie said Xavier Moloney, Simon O’Keefe, Matthew Irving, Luke Vogels and Bailey Jenkinson were unlucky to make it.

But when you have two ex-AFL players, two forwards who have won 10 goalkicking awards in the competition and three players who have won the Maskell Medal as the best and fairest, it’s hard to put everyone on the list.