IF IT wasn't Geelong's decision in 2006, it was definitely Richmond's in 2016.
Choosing to retain an underperforming, under-pressure coach instead of sacking him, as the Cats did with Mark Thompson and Tigers with Damien Hardwick, was, for those times, novel.
>> GET THE LATEST FROM DAMIAN BARRETT
Both Thompson and Hardwick had come off bad seventh seasons when their clubs heavily analysed their futures. Both won premierships immediately, in their eighth seasons, and both added a second flag in their 10th years. The AFL being a copycat industry, every club has since sought to follow those ways and back in their under-siege coaches when it was their turn to either sack or re-contract.
While this approach has led to head coaches experiencing a historically rare era of job security and stability, the clubs choosing to continue long-term with coaches who weren't quickly able to get their teams to pointy-ended finals have not enjoyed the successes of Geelong and Richmond.
Just two of the 18 clubs took new coaches into the 2024 season. Had it not been for Hardwick choosing to exit his Richmond deal in mid-2023 to become Gold Coast coach, there is every chance Stuart Dew would not have been sacked to make way for Hardwick, and there would have been a clean coaching slate out of the 2023 season.
Of course, each club has its own specific set of circumstances to consider when choosing to sack or back a coach, but clearly most have chosen to naively view the Geelong and Richmond decisions of 2006 and 2016 as blueprints for the path to success.
No club in the game's history has offered more support without a Grand Final appearance than Port Adelaide has to Ken Hinkley, now in his 12th season, and who is this Friday night entering what will almost certainly be his final match as coach should it end in defeat, against Hawthorn in a semi-final at Adelaide Oval.
Hinkley is contracted for 2025, but having lost his past four finals, and five of his past six, and with senior assistant Josh Carr already being given a nudge-nudge, wink-wink offer in late 2022 to take over from Hinkley, he knows he has had time to reach a Grand Final.
Adelaide's Matty Nicks has not managed a single-digit ladder finish in five seasons, and only the lowly Richmond, North Melbourne and West Coast finished lower than the Crows this year. In early 2024, he was re-contracted by the Crows to the end of 2026.
Like the Crows, Fremantle early this year sought to ease public pressure on Justin Longmuir when it added 2025 to his deal. Losing the last four matches of the 2024 season was a disastrous outcome for him, given a top-four finish had loomed. The late unavailability of Josh Treacy, Alex Pearce and Sean Darcy was problematic, but after five years in charge Longmuir has made one finals series – in 2022, when he won an elimination final.
Fremantle felt it was clever in adding a one-year extension to Longmuir. But it now finds itself in the exact same position – with an unproven coach entering the last year of a deal.
Luke Beveridge won a premiership in his second season, 2016, and reached a Grand Final in his seventh. He has not won a final outside of those seasons, and has lost his past three finals in demoralising circumstances – the 2021 Grand Final when conceding 16 of the final 17 goals of the game, a 2022 elimination final against the Dockers after leading by seven goals, and last Friday's elimination final against Hawthorn, where after a two-goal lead early in the game, his side conceded a six-goal-to-nothing stretch.
Like Longmuir, Beveridge is contracted to the end of 2025. Port Adelaide allowed Hinkley to enter the 2023 season without the guarantee of a Power future beyond that year. It is going to be intriguing to see what the Dockers and Bulldogs do in coming months. Bailey Smith being desperate to exit Bulldogs operations under Beveridge's watch, three years after Josh Dunkley sought to do so and two years since he did (to Brisbane), is an interesting backdrop to those considerations.
The man behind the Thompson extension of 2006 was CEO Brian Cook, who is now at Carlton. Cook stared down doubters of Michael Voss in mid-2023, and then re-contracted him to the end of 2026.
Collingwood and GWS respectively gave Nathan Buckley and Leon Cameron 10 and nine seasons in charge before ending their tenures. Both coaches made a Grand Final and further to that, both had two other seasons which ended in preliminary finals.
But their respective replacements had instant "success", with Craig McRae's first two seasons at Collingwood ending in a one-point preliminary final loss and a premiership, and Adam Kingsley taking the Giants all the way in his first year to a one-point preliminary final loss. Last Saturday, GWS lost an epic qualifying final to Sydney by six points.
There is a trusted mantra in football that if you've got a good coach, it is risky to seek change. But the Giants and Pies proved that it is possible that good coaches can be instantly replaced with more, or at least equally, impactful ones. Change at those clubs is already proven to have been positive.
As the 2024 season winds down to its final five matches, many clubs, including one remaining in this year's finals, have pressing decisions to make on coaches. Seeking stability and giving coaches several contract upgrades, even without high-end success, is an admirable approach.
But some clubs have become comfortable in regularly missing – and losing – finals. History says the Geelong and Richmond ways of 2006 and 2016 were the exceptions to winning premierships, not the blueprint.
