Hawthorn must start planning for its next dynasty now, says coaching great Mick Malthouse

PEOPLE writing off Hawthorn have forgotten how good Alastair Clarkson is and Mick Malthouse writes the four-time premiership mentor has the runs on the board to rejuvenate the Hawks.

Shaun Burgoyne and Cyril Rioli celebrate with the 2015 premiership cup. Picture: Wayne Ludbey

IT’S faster to descend the mountain than it is to climb it.

The summit is well behind Hawthorn now and base camp is looming large.

Alastair Clarkson is still tipping a top four finish for his club, and to keep hope he has to, but I’m starting to wonder if the Hawks will even make the eight this year.

“Dynasty” by dictionary meaning is: line of hereditary rulers; succession of leaders. In football terms it means a dominant force, a club with a succession of success. Success defined not only by premierships, but also by finals appearances.

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A dynasty can’t last forever, it’s the nature of the beast. No one is Benjamin Button. No footballer gets quicker with age. Skills don’t keep improving.

Hawthorn has had an amazing run, four premierships in eight years, including the three-peat, but it isn’t currently getting better and other teams are.

The Hawks have a different team now to what it was even two years ago.

Hawthorn players celebrate the club’s 2015 premiership. Picture: Wayne Ludbey

No Sam Mitchell, Jordan Lewis, Brian Lake and, of course, no Lance Franklin since 2014.

Luke Hodge, Shaun Burgoyne and Josh Gibson are at the tail end of their careers.

Finals footy takes a huge toll on footballers. Bodies get smashed and minds get pummelled with pressure. The Hawks have played plenty of finals.

But you don’t have to hit rock bottom to fight your way back. You have to understand where you’ve been to understand where you’re going.

And Clarkson would have a good understanding of exactly where Hawthorn is heading because he’s been there before.

This is his 13th season at the helm of Hawthorn, for nine years in the finals and four premierships.

From the time he took over in 2005 he has probably coached three Hawthorn teams. He won’t win another premiership with this third team, but he may with his fourth.

The true mark of a good coach is how he performs when it’s hard, not when it’s good. It’s the best thing about coaching — taking on the challenges.

Clarkson has done the hard yards before and he can do it again at Hawthorn. He would know it’s time to reinvent, regenerate and rejuvenate.

Team four is already in the making with the inclusions of Tom Mitchell and Jaeger O’Meara. You can’t replace champions but you can rebuild a team around quality players.

Kevin Sheedy coached Essendon for 27 years. He won four premierships in that time coaching six or seven different Bombers teams.

He might have had Dustin Fletcher for 15 of those years, but the team around him changed dramatically. Some combinations will succeed, others will not.

Sheedy withstood the down times to make the most of the up times at Essendon. I first tasted premiership success with Richmond in 1980, and although we played off in another grand final in 1982, when the likes of Kevin Bartlett, Geoff Raines, David Cloke and Robert Wiley retired or left the club, it wasn’t long before the Tigers couldn’t even make the finals.

So the first dynasty I was part of was with the West Coast Eagles when we made the finals 10 years straight, for two premierships and another grand final.

Mick Malthouse celebrates a win with his West Coast players.

Looking back I am so proud that we maintained that success for such a long time, particularly with the across country travel — a factor many can’t quite comprehend unless they’ve done it, every second weekend, year upon year. It’s extraordinarily tough.

I coached three or four West Coast sides in those 10 years. By the end of my time there in late 1999 it was starting to look unrecognisable from how it had looked in the beginning.

No John Worsfold, Peter Sumich, Don Pyke, Chris Mainwaring, Chris Waterman, Michael Brennan, Tony Evans, Brett Heady and Karl Langdon.

As well as that, Guy McKenna, Peter Matera, Dean Kemp, Glen Jakovich, Chris Lewis, Ashley McIntosh and Mitchell White were all in career decline.

There were new players: Ben Cousins, Michael Braun, Andrew Embley, David Wirrpunda, Michael Gardiner and Chad Fletcher, who were all talented footballers, but they needed time to get better.

It took longer still to gain more talent and for the team to jell, for the Eagles to get back to the top and win a premiership, which it did in 2006.

A dynasty is rare because success is hard to maintain for a prolonged period of time in any sport. Especially when the personnel and dynamics are constantly changing as they do in football.

I was blessed to have been part of 10 consecutive finals campaigns at West Coast and eight at Collingwood. I never took it for granted.

At the Pies we came up against the extraordinary Brisbane Lions whose dynasty remains etched in history. Four consecutive grand finals from 2001 to 2004, for three premierships, multiple Brownlow medallists and Coleman medallists. It was a true force to be reckoned with.

However once its stars started to fade and retire the decline came quickly. Very quickly.

The club is onto its third coach — not including caretaker Mark Harvey — since Leigh Matthews’ departure in 2008, after he’d taken on the rebuild when the dynasty ended.

Brisbane players celebrate after winning the 2003 Grand Final.

Jonathan Brown, Simon Black, Luke Power, Tim Notting and Daniel Bradshaw were the only dynasty originals still standing when Michael Voss took over.

Today, some commentators suggest that the Sydney Swans are in danger of missing their first finals campaign since finishing 12th in 2009.

This is a club with the dynasty of playing in five grand finals in 12 years for two premierships.

Lance Franklin, Dan Hannebery, Jarrad McVeigh, Heath Grundy, Kurt Tippett and Kieren Jack probably have their best footy behind them.

But in Sydney I see another team already coming through: Callum Mills, Isaac Heeney, Oliver Florent and Will Hayward are all rapidly gaining experience.

With several senior players to come back into the team, I believe Sydney can still push for a top eight spot this year. And then watch the resurgence, with fresh faces and fresh talent.

A football club might not build a dynasty in the true sense of the word, but the legacies they do create, when they create them, are worth fighting for. And waiting for.