Parkin, who coached Hawthorn, Carlton and Fitzroy, said the days were gone where clubs could appoint coaches who hadn’t spent some time as an assistant.
Parkin pointed to the Brisbane Lions’ coach Michael Voss as an example of someone who should have looked at life as an assistant before taking on a head coaching role.
“The game has got to the point where you need an apprenticeship of some kind and I think even Michael Voss might be thinking now that was the direction he should have had instead of having one year in the media then going into coaching,” Parkin said.
“Get smart and do what Nathan Buckley’s done - prepare yourself properly for the job that is a totally different job to captaining and playing football and I would suggest that James Hird, as good an individual as he is and I think a very competent person, a very smart person, he would be a fool to go down that road without preparing himself properly for it.”
Parkin said he felt for Matthew Knights who was sacked as Essendon coach on Sunday, less than 24 hours after his team’s final game for 2010.
“I don’t know Matthew personally. It’s just a tough time because you go back to your own situation. I was sacked three times and you selfishly start to think about how it affected you as a person,” Parkin said.
“I have some empathy with Matthew and his position and he would be hurting like mad because he would believe he is actually developing that group pretty well contrary to what the board who appointed him would think and that is their right and privilege.
“The good thing is he has a two year contract in place and he has a financial base from which to work from. I think that’s wonderful. Other people say he had a contract for two years and didn’t get to see the contract through. He’ll be able to watch footy and enjoy his life while he is paid for doing it.”
Parkin was speaking at the official launch of the 2010 finals campaign, where it was announced he would present the Jock McHale medal to the premiership winning coach.
Two of his former sides have made it through to September but he says both the Blues and Hawks are unlikely to be premiership contenders as they are coming from the bottom half of the eight.
“History says that in the last 16 years no one has won it from under four. The facts are if you don’t finish one to four you are probably not going to win it,” he said.
“Both Carlton and Hawthorn on their day could whack any of the mob who are playing above them but it’s very unlikely and history would say no. I’m a realist about that.”
