JUST because Dean Cox publicly withdrew from the West Coast Eagles coaching race doesn't mean he's a scratching.
On July 19, nine days after West Coast and Adam Simpson had parted, Eagles favourite son and favoured coaching candidate Cox stunningly said he was out, citing personal and family reasons for wanting to stay where he has been since late 2016, as an assistant coach at the Sydney Swans beneath John Longmire.
As with a lot of football matters in 2024, I believe the public game is different to the private one with the Eagles coach vacancy; that Cox's sudden dismissal of the Eagles' interest was more to do with Longmire and his top-of-ladder Swans wanting zero outside distractions on a premiership tilt than it did with Cox having no interest in being Simpson's replacement.
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Once the Swans' season is finished, it will be incumbent on Don Pyke, the man now empowered as West Coast CEO to find the next Eagles coach, to ask Cox one more time if he would like to consider pitching for the main job at the club at which he played 290 matches, and secured a premiership and six All-Australian guernseys.
Pyke would respect Cox's dismissal of initial enquiries. He knows Cox well, and for the 2021-23 seasons, he shared assistant coach responsibilities with Cox under Longmire in the Swans' previous serious attack on a flag. They shared the disappointment of 2022, when Sydney badly lost a Grand Final to Geelong.
Pyke would know that when Grand Finals loom, football departments need to be fully focused, not have attention diverted to other causes. He followed this lead himself in 2015, the third of his three seasons as an assistant coach at West Coast. On the Friday after the Eagles had lost that year's Grand Final to Hawthorn, Pyke was announced as senior coach of the Adelaide Crows.
That both Pyke and Cox were jointly approached by Eagles powerbrokers about this time last year to consider a potential joint coaching arrangement underlines the trust the two have with each other. Pyke rejected the coaching proposal, instead accepting the major off-field role, and Cox went back to the Swans, who will almost certainly finish the 2024 home-and-away season on top of the ladder, regardless of results in this weekend's final round.
While Pyke waits for the Swans' season to finish, he will be continuing to critique potential candidates. Cox, Nathan Buckley, Ashley Hansen (an assistant at Carlton), Josh Carr (Port Adelaide), Jaymie Graham (Fremantle) and Daniel Giansiracusa (Essendon) have indicated they do not want to be part of the process.
Brett Montgomery (GWS) is in the mix, as is interim coach Jarrad Schofield. It is believed that Danny Daly, general manager football at Brisbane Lions, is a person of interest for the Eagles.
Despite the approach to be a coach last year, Pyke has ensured those who ask that he would not even consider being Simpson's replacement. And while there has been noise in some sections that Ken Hinkley might loom large as an option should the Power tumble out of the finals, it is understood that as of this week there has been no contact with his representatives.
Cox has long desired taking over from Longmire, who has been Sydney coach since 2011 and is contracted until the end of 2025. The Swans are adamant there is no succession plan for him to take over from the premiership-winning Longmire, who may be in career-best form this season and has constantly, in a 14-year career, displayed an ability to positively change himself and his game style.
There is no rush for the Eagles, as they have the coaching market to themselves. But there may be a rush for the Swans to put a compelling long-term proposal to Cox before Pyke inevitably checks back in with his old mate later this month.
