Opinion: Ashley Browne

What I’m thinking

with Ashley Browne

SIDE BY SIDE: First-year Magpie coach Craig McRae has been a breath of fresh air; (below) fellow preliminary final coaches Chris Scott, John Longmire and Chris Fagan.

Close call but McRae coach of the year

After lifting the Magpies from 17th to a preliminary final in his first year, Craig McRae deserves best coach honour.

One of the hardest awards of all to read in football is the coach of the year.

In some years it goes to the premiership coach, with Melbourne’s Simon Goodwin last year the most recent example.

In other years, the award ends up in the hands of the coach whose team has made a particularly great leap or dominated the home and away competition.

The quirk of the award, and why some downplay its significance, is that four-time premiership coach Alastair Clarkson has never won it. Not when the Hawks were winning flags, nor when they were coming close.

That the award should be held over until after the Grand Final and given to the premiership coach is an idea full of merit.

Premierships are not won on talent alone. It also takes masterful coaching.

But if the overall body of work for the season is going to remain the criteria, then it is hard to go past Collingwood’s Craig McRae as the 2022 coach of the year.

It starts with the numbers.

No coach has lifted his club so far up the ladder in League history. The Pies were 17th last year and can finish no lower than third this year. It has been a remarkable season.

Stepping in so successfully to replace Nathan Buckley at Collingwood is no mean feat.

Buckley was an iconic figure, one of the club’s greatest players who made a decent fist of coaching.

He was 80 seconds away from coaching a premiership in 2018. But Collingwood needed a fresh voice and a different outlook. The Magpies play with speed and on the edge of chaos. Comparisons to Richmond 2017-20 are valid given that

McRae was a trusted lieutenant there under Damien Hardwick and it is likely no coincidence that bringing fellow former Tiger assistant Justin Leppitsch with him in a strategic role has helped spark Collingwood’s revival.

Add former Carlton coach

Brendon Bolton to the mix and there are few better coaching groups, especially at the top end, in the AFL.

McRae has been a breath of fresh air.

He doesn’t delve in cliches and he speaks with sincerity and warmth. His “we can win the premiership” remarks after the semi-final win over Fremantle last

Saturday night were notable for their candour.

We don’t hear such talk from coaches very often, so let’s hope we don’t make that a hanging offence if they don’t salute from here.

There are 17 coaching jobs in the AFL and then there is Collingwood.

The scrutiny and the expectation are enormous.

The Magpies have long thrived on ‘us against the world’ mentality, but McRae has flipped that narrative on its head.

He has taken all of us in football on their journey, through the many close finishes this year.

Dare it be said, he has made the Magpies likeable.

Fellow preliminary final coaches Chris Scott, John Longmire and Chris Fagan have also enjoyed terrific seasons and should figure in some way in the 3-2-1 votes of their peers.

Scott deconstructed Geelong at the end of 2021, another year in which the Cats fell agonisingly short.

The coaching staff was overhauled (moving on from loyal and longstanding assistants Corey Enright and Matthew Knights could not have been easy), the game-plan was reimagined, and the Cats are riding a 14-game unbeaten streak into the preliminary final.

Sydney’s transformation under Longmire over the past two years has been remarkable.

The Swans can beat you with speed and skill, or as was the case against Melbourne a fortnight ago, with monstrous defensive pressure and tackling.

Like Scott, Longmire has been in the job for 12 seasons, yet keeps himself fresh and relevant with the players.

Fagan’s work over the past two weeks deserves widespread acclaim.

The epitaphs were being prepared for the Lions after their round 23 thrashing against Melbourne, but within the opening fortnight of the finals they stared down Richmond and then the Demons – their bogy teams of not just this year, but many years.

And they came to the MCG and had a win there for the first time in 12 attempts.

Invariably, it is the players who will be hailed the heroes on Saturday week.

But whoever is fortunate enough to become the premiership coach at around 5.15pm next Saturday, well, they will also have some stories of their own to tell.

Dare it be said, he has made the Magpies likeable