Eddie McGuire says Collingwood has a small window of opportunity to secure Alastair Clarkson
Eddie McGuire knows how to get a deal done to land a big name coach. What does he think of Collingwood’s chances of securing Alastair Clarkson?
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Former Magpies president Eddie McGuire says Collingwood has a small “window” of opportunity to coax four-time premiership coach Alastair Clarkson into joining the club next year if it believed he was the right man to lead its fightback.
McGuire, who resigned in February after more than two decades in the role, said Collingwood had the advantage on Carlton in potentially chasing Clarkson, given the Blues are in the midst of an external review of the club’s football operations.
“I think Collingwood is in a good position if they think that he is the man because Carlton have still got to go through their review, and they can’t jump at it and get ahead of it,” McGuire said on Footy Classified.
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“There’s a little window for Collingwood, if they think he’s the man, to get in and do it.”
McGuire said in an ideal world Clarkson would leave the Hawks now after being told he would not receive a new contract and would be replaced by Sam Mitchell at the end of next season.
While Clarkson said this week he would honour the final year of his contract, McGuire and Ross Lyon said clubs such as Collingwood and Carlton would likely enquire into whether he was gettable.
“In the best possible world, Clarko would finish up this week and have some time off and get himself right and go away with his wife and family,” McGuire said.
Lyon, who lost to Clarkson in the 2013 Grand Final, said Carlton would be derelict in their duty if it didn’t consider the outgoing Hawthorn coach, even though they are in the middle of a review that could yet decide senior coach David Teague’s future.
“He (Clarkson) is the eminent coach of our time,” Lyon said. “He has delivered Hawthorn four premierships - with help - in 18 years.”
“He should be sought after; he should be coveted.
“Jason Dunstall knows him well; and says he still has the passion to coach. Therefore, if you are Carlton or Collingwood, you go bang … that’s my view.”
Lyon said the Blues’ review - even allowing for the fact the club has won its past two games - shouldn’t stop the club from speaking to Clarkson.
“I think if you are the board and you are the CEO and the best coach in the land is available and you are doing a review because your performance is below par … you can go and get him, if you can. We are talking about Alastair Clarkson (who) has become available.”
LEGEND PREDICTS YEARS OF STRUGGLE FOR MITCHELL, HAWKS
Hawthorn great Don Scott has backed the club’s controversial coaching handover plan but says the Hawks are up to eight years away from any success.
Scott, who helped save the club from a merger with Melbourne in 1996, said the decision to end Clarkson’s stint as coach at the end of next season was “an excellent move” from the Hawks as they attempt to move into a new era under Sam Mitchell.
Scott said he expected Clarkson to negotiate an early release from his contract which finishes at the end of next season and coach elsewhere.
Regardless, Scott said Hawthorn fans should brace for a long wait before its next premiership tilt on the back of a golden reign winning four flags.
“Hawthorn, in my opinion, are not going to be any good for at least eight years,” Scott told the Herald Sun.
“They’ve got to go back and start drafting again. You cannot use recycled payers who have a used-by date.
“You have got to have the young players coming though because it doesn’t matter who coaches if you don’t have the cattle. They have got to start again.”
Scott said it made sense not to have to pay Clarkson one of the biggest coaching salaries in the game while the Hawks rebuild the team over the next three-to-five years.
He is getting a lot of money and they will get another coach (Mitchell) for less,” Scott said.
“Your income is not going to be great while you are down the bottom.”
Scott, a former captain who won three premierships and joined the board between 1996-2004, said Clarkson was entitled to consider his coaching options.
Clarkson is contracted at Hawthorn until the end of next season but is expected to be in-demand.
“I could see a deal being done right now,” Scott said.
“I can see him going to Hawthorn and negotiating an out and going to another club.
“That emotional tie which used to exist in football is no longer there.”
KENNETT: I CAN’T SEE CLARKO JOINING THE PIES
—Michael Warner
Hawthorn president Jeff Kennett says he expects Alastair Clarkson to resist an offer to coach Collingwood next year.
The embattled Magpies are almost certain to make the call to Clarkson’s management after it was revealed the four-time premiership coach had agreed to hand over to assistant coach Sam Mitchell at the end of next season.
Asked whether he believed Clarkson, 53, would consider a shock move to the Holden Centre, Kennett told the Herald Sun: “Well, he said not — and he said he wants to see out his contract, but we can’t deal with a hypothetical.
“We can only deal with what each party says and I take him at his word, and he is taking us at our word that we want him to coach next year.
“I suspect he will honour and enforce what he said today.”
Clarkson is almost certain to attract offers from rival clubs despite committing to the Mitchell transfer-of-power plan, but Kennett believes he intends to spend more time with his family.
“It was interesting, he said he had his five Fs — family, football, friends, fitness and the farm — and he said, ‘Caryn (his wife) and I have been talking about this for a long time, it’s why we had the current contract ending next year because that is when our last son is finishing school and that will give us options. And he said, ‘I haven’t spent as much time with my family as I would like and I haven’t kept as fit as I would like and I’ve got my farm’.
“So he was very clear in what he said and although I’m not sure how much of a surprise this was to him, or whether as he said Caryn and he had talked about it anyway, but today he was quite open with everyone in saying he might get to the end of next year and have some time off.”
Pressed on whether the Hawks would stand in Clarkson’s way if Collingwood made him a “Godfather” offer to replace Nathan Buckley, Kennett said: “Again, I’m not dealing with hypotheticals, but I have said today, anything that comes up we will deal with professionally.
“This hasn’t been based on personalities, it’s been a very professional decision by the club where governance had been the top priority, succession and understanding that we’ve got to put in place the leaders for the next decade … but if anything pops up we will deal with it as we always do.”
Kennett said he was proud of the fact the Clarkson-Mitchell handover plan did not leak out before Tuesday’s announcement.
“It’s been a very disciplined exercise,” Kennett said.
“It probably started about three weeks ago when Clarko said to (football boss) Rob McCartney, ‘I think we ought to talk about it’ after the Collingwood disaster (the Nathan Buckley sacking) … and out of respect for him we did it …”
The former Victorian premier rejected suggestions of a prickly relationship with Clarkson.
“It’s always been professional, it’s never been about personalities and I have seen some presidents and some board directors at other clubs … who have fallen in love with the liniment and they lose the perspective of what they are there to do and achieve,” Kennett said.
“I have the highest regard for him (Clarkson) and what he has achieved.”
WILL CLARKO SEE OUT HAWTHORN’S SUCCESSION PLAN?
—Glenn McFarlane
Alastair Clarkson, the most successful coach of the modern era, will not rule out coaching a rival club after the Hawks sensationally called time on his celebrated career.
In a seismic decision that will shake the AFL coaching landscape, the Hawks announced Clarkson would see out his 18th AFL season with the club next year before handing over the reins to Sam Mitchell.
Clarkson said he intended to honour the succession plan and the final year of his Hawthorn contract.
But it is understood that Hawthorn would not stand in the four-time premiership coach’s way if he were to receive an offer from a rival club to coach in 2022.
Clarkson, 53, had sought clarity from the Hawks about their future coaching plans after Collingwood expressed an interest in speaking with Mitchell as a potential replacement for Nathan Buckley.
Hawthorn president Jeff Kennett and the club’s board came to a decision last Monday week that it would not offer Clarkson a new contract.
Instead, they chose to anoint 38-year-old Mitchell as the club’s senior coach from the end of the 2022 season – when Clarkson’s current deal expires.
Clarkson was told of the decision last Wednesday, but chose to keep it a secret to ensure it did not hijack the 400-game celebrations of club great Shaun Burgoyne last Saturday night.
Officially, the Magpies are the only club in the market for a new coach at the moment with Clarkson’s former footy boss Graham Wright leading that process.
Clarkson’s availability is certain to attract the interest of a number of AFL clubs, including the Magpies, Carlton who is in the midst of a review into its underperforming football program, and potentially even the Gold Coast.
Kennett said the Hawks believed Mitchell was the right man to take the club forward for the next three to five seasons.
Mitchell will coach Box Hill next year but has a three-year deal to be the senior Hawthorn coach from 2023-25.
“It is a tough day, but we are a very professional club and you’ve got to put the interests of the club before everything else,” Kennett said.
“It is the responsibility of the board to plan and structure the transition of personnel within the club.
“Alastair has served us well in his time at Hawthorn, but we must put our emotions into second place and make the tough but right calls for our club’s future.”
Kennett acknowledged rival clubs could seek to recruit Clarkson as early as next season, but said that was something the Hawks would deal with if the situation arose.
“I would imagine many of them (rival clubs) would love to get Clarko,” he said. “It is not there at the moment and whatever happens, we will deal with it.”
Clarkson jokingly told a media briefing in their “war room” at Waverley that two-time president Kennett “had to come back for a second go to get me”.
Clarkson is already the longest-serving coach in Hawthorn’s history – he has coached 383 matches since taking over as a relative coaching unknown in 2005 – and sits alongside legends John Kennedy and Allan Jeans as the three of the most influential figures at the club.
“Understanding nothing lasts forever, the decision to finish my time at Hawthorn at the end of my current contract was the best path forward for the club long-term,” Clarkson said.
“We are all temporary custodians of the brown and gold, and we do our best to serve the colours well during our tenure. I am proud of what we have achieved as a club over the past 17 years.”
“At the end of last year, we made a decision to lay the foundations for the next wave of success at Hawthorn. That work has already begun, we are beginning to see glimmers of what the future Hawthorn side will look like, and I am committed to playing my part in continuing this work until the end next season”
Asked if he was open to coaching elsewhere as early as next year, Clarkson said: “It is a difficult question to answer right now … I probably need to take a breath, but by and large what has kept me at the Hawthorn Football Club has been the relationship with the people, including my relationship with the players.
“Right at the present time … my moral obligation is to the commitment I made to the players and the club and that is through to the end of next year.
“I am really, really confident that Sam is going to be an outstanding coach.”
Mitchell said it was a massive honour to be selected as Hawthorn’s next coach, saying: “I am very, very excited and joyous … It is a new world I am going to embark on and I will be as well prepared as any at that point.”
THE SPECIAL MEETING THAT SEALED HAWKS’ SUCCESSION PLAN
Hawthorn’s coach-in-waiting Sam Mitchell and the man he will ultimately replace sat down for a 20-minute discussion on Monday to work through the parameters of how their roles would look through to the coaching handover at the end of next season.
The meeting between Mitchell and Alastair Clarkson took place the day before the Hawks’ succession plan was made public, but both remain convinced it can work if their respective roles are clear, because both want the best for Hawthorn.
Clarkson will retain clear control of the coaching reins for the next 15 months, while Mitchell will continue to coach Box Hill, but will have a strong say in recruiting, list management and staffing heading into next season.
“Game-style week-to-week and planning tactics and strategies, that is all in Clarko’s wheelhouse, and then recruiting, more of list management and staffing will fall to my remit,” Mitchell said on Tuesday.
“To be honest, we had a 15-to-20-minute conversation and we don’t sit here (now) and think we have every answer (about how it will look).
“The thing we said is ‘Let’s remain completely open and honest and sit down and have the discussions.
“At some point, I am sure we will disagree as we have over the last 20 years, but so long as we know who is in charge of which roles, it will all work out.
“At the end of the day, we can be sure we both want the same thing (for Hawthorn).”
Clarkson said it was important both understood what their roles would look like for the remainder of this season and for next year as well.
“We caught up (on Monday) for 20 minutes to try and work out who is going to do what over the next 18 months, because that’s what probably made it difficult over the last couple of weeks,” Clarkson said.
“There are coaches who come out of contract and we have got to let them know by August 1 whether they are going to be in our program or not. Then there are players who you might want to recruit or speak to their managers in terms of free agency.
“It was like ‘Hey, these might not be my decision to make anymore.’
“We just needed to make sure the right person was making those decisions. If I wasn’t going to be the coach of the club beyond next year, then I don’t think I am the right person to be making some of those decisions.”
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