Alastair Clarkson: The Long Game
- Jun 2, 2017
- 3 min read
Over the first three months of the 2017 season, it’s been easy to see Alastair Clarkson as the football equivalent of Leslie Nielsen in Naked Gun, reassuring everyone that it’s all under control even while the fortress burns behind him.
“Nothing to see here. Please disperse.”
And no doubt about it, Clarkson is enduring the roughest trot of his legendary coaching career. After a pre-season in which horrified fans watched on as stalwarts Sam Mitchell and Jordan Lewis were traded out, the Hawks are mired in 14th position. Last night’s humiliation at the hands of Port Adelaide – a 51-point loss that felt a hundred points worse after the Hawks’ all-time low first half of 0.3 – was a new gash added to the wounds of what was once the most feared club in the AFL. The King is dead, the empire is lost.
Yet at his post-match press conference, the man who has coached the third highest number of premierships in VFL/AFL history merely shrugged. He pointed out his side’s second-half endeavour, reminded the media that they were young and hadn’t had a good run with player availability, nothing to see here, please disperse.
Even for a coach, it was a speech that superbly negated any emotional reveal of crises. But what if we’ve got it wrong? What if this is all part of the plan?
Since the dawn of the new millennium, the philosophy for premiership-winning sides has been the higher the pedestal, the farther the fall. The mighty Brisbane Lions of 2001-03, one of the greatest teams of all time, have played finals just twice since that last premiership victory. Port Adelaide in 2005 and West Coast in 2006 bombed out of the semi-finals after winning the premiership. The Collingwood side that claimed the 2010 flag has finished in a perpetually worse position ever since.
Clarkson gauged the environment after Hawthorn’s quest for a history-making fourth-straight premiership in 2016 ended in a semi-final loss to eventual premiers the Bulldogs. In a move intended to skip or shorten the likely painful rebuilding process of his ageing list, Mitchell and Lewis were moved on. Between them, the pair had 571 games of AFL experience to say nothing of the stability their leadership provided on and off the field.
Let’s not pretend that Clarkson conducted these moves expecting his side to contend for the 2017 premiership. Mitchell is now 34 and Lewis 31. Both were strong and important contributors in 2016 but evidently neither were part of the Hawks’ next five years. Their trade was ruthless but for the greater good. Clarkson further flagged his intentions by recruiting Gold Coast’s Jaeger O’Meara and Sydney’s Tom Mitchell, between them 17 years younger than Mitchell and Lewis.
Which is not to say that Clarkson would look at Hawthorn’s current predicament with complete satisfaction. His side’s effort and intensity has been repeatedly put under questioning and premiership-era veterans like Luke Hodge, Shaun Burgoyne and Josh Gibson are gazing into their football mortality like never before. However, the baptism of fire his side has endured is already bearing fruit. The performances of fast-tracked youngsters like 20-year old key position player Ryan Burton and 22-year old Daniel Howe are testament to the long-term plan while Tom Mitchell is leading the competition in disposals. And this is just in half a season. Give the Hawks another two years and who knows how strong they'll be?
Alastair Clarkson is a four-time premiership coach, a record that includes three consecutive titles in a time when the national competition supposedly denies clubs such extended periods of dominance. If this long-term end game can yield another premiership in his tenure, then we don’t just owe him a grovelling apology. We owe him the recognition as the greatest coach ever.
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