IT IS often said that you cannot turn back time but with an increasing number of AFL coaches spending match day on the interchange bench, it seems in fact that we have gone back 40 years to a time when the elevated coach's box did not exist.

This is yet another by-product of the recent explosion of interchange rotations from about 30 a few years back to now well over 100.

With this rapid and constant change in player positioning, the coaching function of controlling your team from the box has become very difficult because with each team rotating players just about every 60 seconds, the concept of making strategic positional changes mid-game has become less relevant.

Now, it is much more about pre-planned team structures up against the pre-planned team structures of the opposition.

At least half a dozen senior coaches have concluded that having direct contact with players around the interchange area is the best use of their siren-to-siren time.

The role of the modern coach is very much about managing a coaching operation made up of line coaches, stoppage coaches, development coaches, specialist coaches - anything from eight to 10 people.

If I was to make a comparison, I would say that the senior coach individually did 90 per cent of the coaching function back in the part-time days. Now they would personally do more like 60 per cent.

Like all management functions, it requires that you not only appoint the right people but that you relinquish control and delegate authority.

This also leads me to something we may see more often in the future - a coaching partnership.

I guess I'm talking of something like the partnership I had at Collingwood and Brisbane with Graeme Allan - even if 'Gubby', now footy manager at West Sydney, was more a football-savvy administration man than a match-day assistant coach.

It would appear at the Sydney Swans that Paul Roos and his successor John Longmire are a good example of a coaching partnership in action.

Roosy is at ground level and depends on Longmire in the coach's box to advise and maybe control the big picture player positioning and tactical adjustments.

We don't know the exact duties that each fill but it would appear that this pair basically share the senior coaching function.

Certainly, with the current trend of coaching from the boundary line, a coaching partnership allows for one person to maintain close personal contact with players at the interchange bench and one can have the elevated view from upstairs.

Clearly a lot of coaches believe they can better convey their message and maintain good lines of communication with their players in person at ground level, rather than over the phone from the coach's box.

Like in most elite team sports, in the AFL the coach is where the buck stops.

Team plays well, coach is a genius. Team plays poorly, coach is an idiot. If only it was that simple.

Last year Matthew Knights, Michael Voss and Brett Ratten got their teams into the finals and were highly regarded. Right now their abilities are being publicly questioned. On the contrary, the standing of Mark Harvey and Dean Bailey has gone from poor to high in the same short period.

Experience tells me their actual coaching performances have probably changed very little.

The fact is the media and the fans fall in and out of love with coaches in parallel with team performance.

So where does the senior coaching role sit in developing and maintaining an elite team?

My time in footy has convinced me that the coach's contribution, both good and bad, is vastly overrated by the footy community. While his role is critical, the coach is only one part of the team performance jigsaw puzzle.

In building a successful off-field team, the first three pieces to get right are coaching, recruiting and conditioning.

For argument's sake, let's say the best senior coach is to be paid $600,000.

To get the very best recruiting person would be worth up to $400,000.

Because if you don't get the player talent into the club, nothing else matters.

Perhaps that was why almost the first person appointed by the new Gold Coast franchise was highly regarded recruiting chief Scott Clayton.

Similarly, getting the very best conditioning person would be worth a similar amount.

Because even the most talented players are no good unprepared or sitting in the grandstand injured.

As unfair or as unrealistic as it is, nothing will ever stop the senior coach bearing the brunt of the blame for a struggling team, because every coach knows that ultimately his win-loss ratio will decide his future.

The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL.