Does Alastair Clarkson have a “job in the bag” for 2023?
The four-time premiership coach is out of the game this year after his successful tenure with Hawthorn came to a head at the end of the 2021 season.
A logical next step for Clarkson would be to take the reins at the Gold Coast Suns in a bid to reinvent the flailing club. The notion has been thrown around extensively already.
The Sounding Board’s Damian Barrett and Craig Hutchison pondered what could be ahead for Clarkson who continues to be linked with Stuart Dew’s job at the Suns.
Hutchison asked: “Do you think Alastair Clarkson has a job in the bag for next year?”
Barrett replied: “Yeah, I do. The obviously one is Gold Coast, isn’t it?”
Hutchison: “You think he’s been offered the Gold Coast job already?”
Barrett: “I think he’s got a job in the bag.
“Whether that means it’s that particular job club, whether that means it’s a nudge, nudge, wink, wink…
“Well, they can’t do anything now, there’s a coach in place.
“You feel bad talking about this given there is a coach in place, but we’ve also got a four-time premiership coach who has managed to get a deal with a club that effectively sacked him and is paying him about a million dollars to not coach this year.
“You know he’s going to be back in the system whether it’s next year or the year after.”
It’s not the first time this topic has been discussed, nor will it be the last.
The interesting factor in all of this is that the AFL has a vested interest in how the Suns perform.
That performance has been largely underwhelming since the club’s AFL inception in 2011 and both Hutchison and Barrett believe the competition will be keen to save face by bringing in one of the best modern day coaches.
But is there a need to heed caution in the pursuit?
Hutchison: “How active do you think the AFL would have been, or should be, in getting him to the Gold Coast Suns?”
Barrett: “They’ve got to be very careful about being seen to be active, don’t they?
“I’d be staggered if they had any fingerprints over anything, but you don’t have to have fingerprints over something for it to go your way.”
A similar instance occurred more than two decades ago when Leigh Matthews made the journey from Collingwood to Brisbane in a bid to spark interest in the game up north.
That endeavour proved successful, so why not try again?
Hutchison: “Do you think they’d be in the background trying to orchestrate the outcome?”
Barrett: “If you want to go down that path - and you covered this story hard at the time - when the Brisbane Bears as they were had that season in 1998 where John Northey started and then was removed and Roger Merrett took over.
“You broke that story that Leigh Matthews was going to be that man to go to the non-AFL heartland and fix it up.
“There’s a massive parallel with Alastair Clarkson, isn’t there? From the non-AFL heartland piece of this story and the fact that he’s an all-time great already. Whether he coaches another game of footy not, he’s already a multiple premiership coach as Leigh Matthews was as a player and coach of another club in Collingwood.
“I think the parallels are staggeringly similar, but I don’t think I’m saying anything that people themselves wouldn’t have already possibly thought of.”
For the Suns to prosper, AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan simply must make the Clarkson move happen.
Hutchison: “My opinion would be, if I were Gil, I would be absolutely going hell for leather to make sure he’s the coach of the Suns in ‘23.
“It’s an investment that probably borders around $200 million already. They need to put the best product out they can.
“It doesn’t guarantee he’s going to be successful as a coach, we don’t know whether his ways will connect with them and them with him, or whether he’s run out of steam or vice versa, but on exposed form gives you the absolute best chance of fixing what has been rather embarrassing at times for them.
“You can’t leave that to the people because the people have shown that they aren’t capable of making the hard calls, or the right calls, along the way.
“So you’ve got to actually get involved and it’s irrelevant whether your fingerprints are on it or off it. There’s an easy way to do it with your fingerprints off it.”
Barrett: “They’re (the AFL) on the hook for the success of that football club and it has been a disaster for them.”
Hutchison: “You wouldn’t even hesitate to drive that deal yourself if you were the AFL and you just live with the reaction because people will move on pretty quickly.”
Barrett: “He’s not going to do it unless he gets a lot of money and he’s also not going to do it unless he gets, I would think, some further guarantees on access and certainly retention of players.”
Hutchison: “He’s got bargaining power. He could almost get the rules re-written to take that job. This is the most leverage anyone has ever had in a role ever, probably.
“If you’re advising Alastair, you’d say: ‘Let your imagine loose, draw up the biggest list known to man’. I don’t think there’s anything off the table in this conversation.
“He’ll have significant leverage.”
Brace yourself for plenty of speculation regarding Clarko and the Suns over the next few months. There will be no shortage.