AFL COACHES Association chief executive Danny Frawley is frustrated by clubs' apparent infatuation with appointing a young coach over an experienced one.

Richmond and North Melbourne are in the process of finding successors for Terry Wallace and Dean Laidley with early connections made with Collingwood great Nathan Buckley, who retired as a player in 2007.

A day after Leigh Matthews' resignation at the end of last season, the Brisbane Lions appointed triple-premiership captain Michael Voss, who had spent his two years' retirement as a media commentator and a coach of elite junior footballers at the AIS-AFL Academy.

"We just find it quite interesting how clubs put a criterion in that they want a young developing coach, but I would have thought clubs want to get the best coach," Frawley said in a wide-ranging interview with afl.com.au.

"People talk about Mick Malthouse [getting on in years] and we want Mick to coach for the next 10 years.

"We find it frustrating as an association how everyone's jumped on board getting young coaches. Yes, they're very good, but in soccer is Alex Ferguson, who just coached Manchester United to the title, a good coach? Is Phil Jackson, who just coached the Lakers to the NBA title, a good coach? The answer is yes. Are they older? Yes. Does the same apply to AFL football at the moment? No.

"Why? There's a [false] perception out there. The average age of a coach has dropped from 49, since the days of Kevin Sheedy, David Parkin, Leigh Matthews and Denis Pagan, down to 44 now."

Frawley pointed to Malthouse's senior record over 26 years at Footscray, West Coast and Collingwood.

"Out of those 26 years he's had 22 winning seasons," he said. "We look at a coach as having a winning season with a win-loss ratio of 50 per cent or better.

"Has Mick coached as many premierships as Kevin Sheedy? No. Has he got a better winning season scenario than Kevin Sheedy? Yes. We think that Mick Malthouse has been an outstanding coach and will continue to be so."

He added he was surprised that Neale Daniher, now general manager of football operations at the Eagles, had not been linked to a second coaching job after guiding Melbourne to six finals series in 10 years.

In his first year as CEO, Frawley said he and the AFLCA were currently working with Laidley and Wallace, the man who took over from him as coach at Punt Road, as they move into the next phases of their careers.

"I suppose the beauty of what I went through is that it's something that I can call on for the guys just to give them some hints on what they may or may not feel," he said.

"You know what's happening from one minute to the next as a senior coach and when that's taken away from you, you've just to keep active and keep in front of people."