Collingwood coaching job: Alastair Clarkson not available as Pies focus attention on other candidates
The head of Collingwood’s coaching panel contacted the manager of Alastair Clarkson to gauge his interest. See how the appoach went down.
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Collingwood will focus its attention on Don Pyke, Adam Kingsley and a handful of other candidates for its vacant coaching role after confirmation Alastair Clarkson is not available.
Graham Wright, who heads Collingwood’s five-person coaching selection panel, recently contacted Clarkson’s manager James Henderson to gauge the four-time premiership coach’s interest in the job.
Henderson confirmed to News Corp on Tuesday that there had been an approach from Collingwood about Clarkson.
It is understood Wright was told that Clarkson intended to honour his contract to remain senior coach of Hawthorn in 2022 before handing over the reins to Sam Mitchell at the end of next season as part of the club’s succession plan.
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Wright said last week he didn’t believe Clarkson would be available for the Collingwood role.
The Magpies were determined to do their due diligence on Clarkson, but it is understood they always believed he wouldn’t consider switching clubs while he was under contract.
Clarkson has said on numerous occasions in recent weeks that he would definitely see out the final year of his contract before deciding on the next phase of his professional career after almost two decades leading the Hawks.
Richmond assistant coach Kingsley impressed in an interview for the Collingwood role last weekend. Michael Voss has also been interviewed.
Pyke, who took Adelaide to a Grand Final appearance in 2017, spoke to Collingwood last year about a potential return to AFL football.
He has since won rave reviews as an assistant coach at Sydney in helping John Longmire and the young team push towards the finals.
Bold or safe? The coaching call set to define Pies’ new era
— Nick Smart
It was time for Hawthorn to be brave.
When a Hawks’ subcommittee came together to select a new senior coach in 2004, they resolved to be bold rather than safe.
The result was a then controversial decision to appoint untried Port Adelaide assistant Alastair Clarkson, who was the club’s first coach without Hawthorn links since Allan Jeans in 1981.
Hawthorn legend and Fox Footy commentator Jason Dunstall said Clarkson was the obvious choice as soon as he opened his mouth.
“When he presented it was easy because he was the standout,” said Dunstall, who was on the selection panel.
“The absolute standout in the way he viewed the game and the way he wanted the club to go forward.
“And at the same time we made a conscious decision to break away from, in inverted commas, the old Hawthorn way of doing things because it wasn’t working.
“So we had to broaden our horizons a bit, so that certainly made me a lot more receptive to someone who had no experience at Hawthorn but a good experience and background elsewhere.”
Will Collingwood possess similar bravery to break the mould and go for what it feels is the best candidate and not necessarily the biggest name?
As Australia’s most famous sporting club, it has loved to appoint its favourite sons – such as Bob Rose, Tony Shaw and Nathan Buckley – as coach.
Although, the Magpies have won just two premierships in over half a century.
The two men that delivered those premierships were Collingwood outsiders in Leigh Matthews and Mick Malthouse.
The art of picking a coach is difficult, with Dunstall admitting it was about making the ‘guess as educated as you can.’
The Hawks’ goalkicking great said the right person needed many key ingredients, including having the “right background.”
“You want them to have seen different environments and I think they need to have a bit of diversity in their background,” he said.
“Not necessarily just coming from a successful environment, although that helps, but it doesn’t hurt if they’ve seen both sides of the coin and been in a number of different environments.
“With Alastair, for example, he also had a teaching background as well which I thought was important.”
Here are the five names at the pointy end of Collingwood’s expansive coach search.
BRAD SCOTT
If Brad Scott is looking for someone to talk him into putting his hand up for the Magpies job, he should probably avoid his twin brother and Geelong coach, Chris Scott.
In a telling interview on Channel 9’s Footy Classified earlier this year, Chris was asked if he’d like to see his brother coach again after departing North Melbourne in 2019.
“No. I wouldn’t. It’s not a very good job to be honest. It’s hard work,” Chris said.
“It’s a stressful existence. Not many coaches coach for 10 years, he coached for 10 years, couple of prelim finals with that list I think was a pretty successful outcome.
“I think there’s a cost to that position that needs to be weighed really carefully.”
It is wise words, particularly as clubs battle in the wake of the AFL cutting $6.2 million from football departments’ soft caps because of the ongoing pandemic.
Coaches have never done more in recent times, and former North Melbourne defender Michael Firrito also questioned whether his former coach would want to do the job.
“He’s got two young boys so whether he wants to put his family under that sort of pressure again and go again, I’m not sure,” he said.
“And he’s seen that first hand with his brother, but that’s probably what he’s weighing up.
“If he doesn’t want that he seems to have a pretty good job at the AFL as well.”
That job is head of AFL Victoria, which certainly would carry infinitely less scrutiny than as the senior coach of one of the league’s biggest clubs.
Although, if Scott did decide he wanted to go for the job – and the recent talk suggests he’s warming to it - Firrito said the Magpies would have a beauty in the two-time Brisbane Lions premiership defender.
“I couldn’t speak any more highly of him, he’s a ripper,” said Firrito, who played 275 games for the Kangaroos.
“Tactically he’s as good as I’ve had as a coach.
“With the way he sees the game and the way he communicates, I think he could easily take that job and be successful.
“He’s been there at Collingwood before and did his apprenticeship there early days there under Mick Malthouse.
“And from what I know he really enjoyed his time there and I know all the boys spoke pretty highly of him and I know Pendles was a big wrap from him as well.
“If he wanted the job he’d be a great fit for it.”
DON PYKE
Some remember him best for the bizarre ‘power stance’ Adelaide implemented when lining up for the national anthem during the 2017 finals series.
For others, it was Adelaide’s controversial pre-season training camp and the fallout from it.
Although, Don Pyke continues to firm for the Collingwood job and some say with very good reason.
Former Brisbane Lions coach and ex-Richmond assistant Justin Leppitsch said he strongly believed Pyke – now a Sydney assistant – was desperately unlucky to have been sacked by the Crows.
“He is the unluckiest guy in footy I reckon,” Leppitsch said on SEN.
“He has got one of the best records ever.
“The reason he left Adelaide was obviously on the back of the camp and a lot of people left.
“Before that, he quickly turned Adelaide from an average team into a grand final team and then it quickly subsided.”
In 93 games in charge at Adelaide, the two-time West Coast flag winner oversaw a winning percentage of just over 60.
“His win-loss record is amazing and he has proven he can coach a team to a really high level,” Leppitsch said.
“I just think he was one of the more unlucky coaches I’ve seen in time … I think he should come back to be honest. I think he has a proven history as a very good coach.”
MARK WILLIAMS
There is a taboo that exists in the AFL, where clubs are sometimes squeamish to look at coaches that have already had a crack elsewhere.
Former Port Adelaide premiership coach Mark Williams was in that group, but the man known as ‘Choco’ is back in vogue.
As head of development at a resurgent Melbourne, Williams’ name is very much in the mix at Collingwood.
Speaking to the Herald Sun recently, Collingwood legend Peter McKenna – who is still an active Magpies supporter though the Collingwood Woodsmen coterie group – went out of his way to strongly endorse Williams to replace Buckley.
“I think he is an intelligent football person and I think he would make an outstanding coach for Collingwood,” he said.
“He’s a Collingwood person and I think he’d just be the perfect fit.
“Not that it has to be a Collingwood person and that’s not the reason I’m saying it.
“I’m saying that because I think he has enormous credentials, tremendous experience and he knows a lot about getting the most out of young players.”
Williams has not coached at senior level since departing Port Adelaide over a decade ago.
He did, however, work as a senior assistant to Kevin Sheedy at the GWS Giants in the club’s early years before working at Richmond as a development coach under Damien Hardwick.
His unorthodox ways has struck a chord at the resurrected Demons and he’s earned many plaudits for his work at the club.
And who could forget his emotional outburst when he choked himself with his own necktie as he walked down onto the MCG in the dying moments of the 2004 grand final?
“I would say he’s an emotional person but I don’t think that’s a bad thing,” McKenna said.
ADAM KINGSLEY
To use stock market parlance, you’d be buying shares in Adam Kingsley right now.
The dual Richmond premiership assistant’s name has rocketed into calculations for the Collingwood top job this past week after impressing the Magpies in preliminary discussions.
The 45-year-old has been an assistant at Punt Rd since 2019 after playing 170 games for Port Adelaide between 1997 and 2006, including the 2004 premiership side alongside Hardwick.
He has plenty of experience after being an assistant at the Power from 2007-2010 before spending eight seasons at St Kilda before moving to the Tigers.
The Tigers have given permission for Kingsley to try for the job, with Hardwick recently labelling him a “wonderful coach” who possessed great relationships with his players.
MICHAEL VOSS
Did Michael Voss win the Brisbane Lions coaching job before he was ready?
Almost certainly.
He flirted with the Gold Coast bid team and looked certain to be the new club’s first coach before signing as a West Coast assistant.
But before he head west, the wheels were in motion for him to replace the great Leigh Matthews at the end of 2008.
He won the job and took charge at the Lions with no previous coaching experience.
At the end of 2013 his time at Brisbane was done, with many best remembering the disastrous recruitment of Brendan Fevola under his watch.
Voss would later admit if he had his time over again, he wouldn’t have accepted the job and should have instead done time as an assistant.
Fast forward to now and Voss would be far better placed to take the reins as a senior coach.
Since Brisbane he upskilled by becoming an assistant at Port Adelaide, with Power coach Ken Hinkley recently declaring the former great was “more than ready” for another senior gig.
“If anyone is looking for a great person and a great coach, Michael Voss would be someone that you should certainly talk to,” Hinkley said.
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