Collingwood premiership coach Craig McRae details the eight coaches who helped shape his destiny as a leader
Craig McRae took a unique approach to his Magpies job application, listing the coaches who had shaped him. And they weren’t all from the AFL.
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It was the power point presentation featuring some of the most famous names in Australian sport – and it helped to launch the tenure of Collingwood’s sixth premiership coach.
As Craig McRae chased the job he had diligently worked towards for a decade and a half, he incorporated images of eight men who had helped shape his destiny as a footballer, coach and leader.
It was late in 2021 and the Magpies were looking for a long-term replacement for Nathan Buckley – one of the eight men who featured in McRae’s presentation – following his mid-season departure from Collingwood’s coaching role.
Collingwood’s coaching subcommittee – headed by football boss Graham Wright and the club’s vice-president Paul Licuria – knew the club needed something (or someone) different to the Buckley era.
From the moment they spoke to him, Wright and Licuria knew McRae was well qualified to bring a fresh dynamic to a playing group looking for change.
The three-time Lions premiership player had been an assistant coach or head of development at four AFL clubs over the space of 15 seasons but this was only his third tilt at securing a senior coaching gig.
When Gold Coast was looking for its inaugural coach in late 2008, McRae was only three years out of his playing career. But he made it through to the final four candidates, alongside Guy McKenna (who won the job), Brad Scott and Alan Richardson.
“I don’t know how it eventuated, but I got through the process,” McRae told this reporter in a zoom interview in 2021.
“I didn’t get the job at the time, but I think I was only two years into my tenure as a development coach at Richmond.”
Then, after Richmond’s 2019 premiership in McRae’s second stint at the Tigers, Adelaide approached him as it looked to find a replacement for Don Pyke.
“It got to a point where I was really questioning whether I wanted to go for that,” he said of the Crows’ approach in late 2019.
“There were a number of reasons why I didn’t choose to go through with the (full) process, mainly around family. I was comfortable in Melbourne and shifting to Adelaide (from a family perspective) was going to be a big move.”
But that Adelaide approach made him determined to be ready the next time a suitable senior coaching position came about.
“When the Adelaide thing came up, I thought, ‘I haven’t really got a presentation to deliver’,” he said. “I thought, ‘If I had to go again tomorrow, could I present something?’ So I started that process, particularly through the Covid lockdown (of 2020), to put together a series of experiences and to put a presentation together.”
Licuria said recently McRae “blew away” the selection panel with his detail, his culture-building characteristics, his level of connection, and his process-driven approach.
This wasn’t a presentation crafted in the space of a few months though; it was effectively a 15-year coaching portfolio of experiences and influences.
He centred his presentation on the eight men who had shaped his football life and gave him a taste of the attributes required to be a successful AFL coach.
The first was Mark Williams, who was McRae’s SANFL coach at Glenelg in 1993-94.
“He (Williams) presented me with opportunities as a young fellow,” McRae said of the man who became an AFL premiership coach with Port Adelaide a decade later.
“He said to me that he would play young players, and I would be one of those players. So giving hope to young players is something I like to do.”
After being drafted to the Brisbane Bears in the pre-season draft leading into 1995, he spent one season under the command of Robert Walls, who had been a Blues premiership coach eight years earlier.
“He (was) big on standards,” McRae said of Walls. “He taught our young Brisbane players, such as Vossy (Michael Voss) and Aker (Jason Akermanis) and myself and Nigel Lappin, high training standards. It was really significant, and that’s part of my DNA around training at high standards.”
McRae highlighted two Collingwood coaches Mick Malthouse and Buckley for giving him the chance to develop as a young coach, during his initial time with the Magpies, from late 2010 to late 2015.
“With Mick, (the presentation) talked about his ability to delegate,” he said. “I hadn’t seen it to that level. He was magnificent at that, among other things.
“Bucks was a real professional preparer and was significant in his preparation for the opposition. There are lots of layers to that.”
McRae’s next influence in his coaching presentation was Damien Hardwick, with whom he worked at Richmond for five years, a period which included the 2017, 2019 and 2020 premierships, as well as his own flag as the Tigers’ VFL coach in 2019.
“Dimma (Hardwick) gave me the autonomy to grow a program, but he also taught me a lot around storytelling and connection and the whole piece of the culture, which is a lot of my teaching and coaching as well,” McRae said.
“The passion really ignited at Richmond in terms of coaching my own team … particularly making grand finals and experiencing in 2019 winning the (VFL) grand final.
“I loved that ability to be able to drive the bus, if you like.”
Perhaps the most surprising inclusion in his coaching presentation was Melbourne Storm coach Craig Bellamy, with whom McRae worked as a part-time kicking coach across almost eight years.
“I started the kicking stuff with Storm when I was at Collingwood (the first time),” he said.
“Then I was a part of Richmond winning premierships and (seeing) the Storm winning premierships, it reinforced to me this is all about great process and culture, and valuing the people … creating winning habits and behaviours that they just keep repeating over and over and over again.
“That was being played out in two different sports, but reinforced (in) the same values.”
McRae’s one season with Hawthorn in 2021 saw him work alongside four-time premiership coach Alastair Clarkson, which showed him “the level of care” required from coach to player.
The name McRae used as the feature of his presentation was the man who influenced his football philosophies more than anyone else, his Lions premiership coach Leigh Matthews.
“I used Leigh last because … he had the most significant influence on me as a coach, and I learnt a lot of my philosophies around coaching from him,” McRae said.
McRae got his work ethic from all of the names above, but first came to understand the importance of hard work from his father, Kevin.
“My dad was a boilermaker who worked six days a week for 40 years,” he said just after being appointed Collingwood coach in September 2021.
“It is in my DNA to work hard. When I was growing up and not getting picked for my high school footy team, I had this thing that, ‘I will prove you wrong!’
“I quickly realised when I got older, it wasn’t about that. It was about proving myself right.
“I feel like I have good resilience and it is going to be needed in this job.”
Fifty-one games into his tenure at Collingwood, McRae is an AFL premiership coach, and the presentation that helped to win him the job will go down in Magpies folklore.
Originally published as Collingwood premiership coach Craig McRae details the eight coaches who helped shape his destiny as a leader
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