WHAT'S the best football job in the world? One replete with low-level expectations, licence to experiment and a guaranteed first-up win.

Step forward the late-season interim coach.

OK, maybe Todd Viney missed out on the first-up win but the appointment of Jim Stynes himself wouldn't have inspired Melbourne to turn around their three-hour slaughter down at the Cattery.

Paul Williams and Mark Bickley had much easier tasks. Their debut coaching gigs were 2011's simplest assignment - a win over Port Adelaide - and both managed it with a degree of aplomb.

Williams inherits a talented list from Rodney Eade, albeit one that is about to lose a leading AFL full-forward in Barry Hall who struck form just at the wrong time for his sacked coach. A purple patch from Bazza in June and Eade may still have a job.

The only consistency Adelaide achieved this season under Neil Craig was to look repeatedly fragile, regularly throw away match-winning leads and look constantly bereft of goal-kicking options when Kurt Tippett was covered.

However there has been one Crow who has risen above all of his teammates since round one to deliver an outstanding season of midfield aggression and ball-winning.

Scott Thompson has been simply magnificent for a struggling team in 2011. The former Demon has failed to gather more than 20 touches in a game just once this season and on Saturday he delivered his coup de grace, a Champion Data record half-century of possessions against the unfortunate Gold Coast Suns.

Thompson sits fourth in the AFL for average possessions, third in handballs, and seventh in clearances in a team that has given him precious little midfield support this season.

In a sign of either abject desperation or the outstanding depth of AFL midfielders this year (depending on your point of view), Sam Mitchell makes way this week for Thompson despite a more than respectable 25 possessions against Carlton.

Thompson delivered twice that number, which makes you think about what sort of stats we might see when Greater Western Sydney enters the competition next year.

With renowned anti-tagging svengali Kevin Sheedy at the helm, maybe the AFL's first 60-possession match is just around the corner.




The views in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of the AFL or its clubs