Selecting a coach
HOW DO you identify the best coach? That's the question Adelaide, Melbourne and the Western Bulldogs are asking themselves at the moment.

In the past, some clubs have simply targeted a high-profile coach at another club and gone after him. Collingwood did this with West Coast coach Mick Malthouse in 1999, as Carlton did with North Melbourne coach Denis Pagan at the end of 2002.

More recently, most clubs have appointed coaches the same way corporations appoint staff. Selection panels are assembled, candidates are short-listed and rounds of interviews and psychological tests are run to identify the 'chosen one'.

Of our three clubs in the coaching market now, only Melbourne is rumoured to have taken the 'direct' approach, with recent reports suggesting it had variously offered Hawthorn coach Alastair Clarkson and his St Kilda counterpart Ross Lyon five-year deals to change their coaching allegiances.

Whether the Demons can pull off such a coaching coup remains to be seen - Clarkson, for one, looks extremely content in his current job. In any event, they are not going to sit on their hands waiting for an answer. On Tuesday, the Demons announced they had formed a sub-committee charged with finding the next Melbourne coach.

The committee consists entirely of Melbourne people - interim football director Garry Lyon, president Jim Stynes, vice-presidents Don McLardy and Guy Jalland, and chief executive Cameron Schwab.

The Crows and Bulldogs had earlier formed their own coaching selection panels. Unlike the Demons, both welcomed outsiders into their decision-marking process.

In addition to chief executive Simon Garlick, football manager James Fantasia and director Geoff Walsh, the Bulldogs appointed their former captain Chris Grant - OK, he's more an insider - but also Geelong premiership captain Tom Harley.

The Crows have brought in an independent consultant, Crank Sports managing director Craig Mitchell, to sit on their coaching sub-committee. Crank Sports describes itself as a sports management consultancy established, among other things, to improve the business performance of sporting organisations.

Mitchell will join Crows board member Nigel Smart (chairman), chief executive Steven Trigg, football director Andrew Payze and football operations manager Phil Harper on the panel formed to appoint Neil Craig's successor.

The Crows will also draft Collingwood and Brisbane Lions premiership coach Leigh Matthews into their selection process, but only in the second round of interviews.

The fact none of these clubs have appointed a former coach in their initial selection panels has left Herald Sun chief football writer Mike Sheahan confused.

"It seems incongruous to have groups making decisions on coaches when none of the panel members has had first-hand experience in coaching," Sheahan wrote.

Specifically, Sheahan was bemused Matthews and Sydney Swans premiership coach Paul Roos had not been approached to be part of the three selection panels. He also wrote that recent coaches such as Terry Wallace and Grant Thomas could have made "a meaningful contribution to the search for a coach".

Sheahan's basic point was simple: unless you've coached - and coached recently - you don't know the demands a coach has to cope with. So, it follows, unless a club has a former coach on its selection panel, how can it make a fully informed decision?

Sheahan's logic is hard to refute. Although we can't question the credentials of 2011's three coaching selection panels, the addition of a former coach would surely only have strengthened each of them. Just as Melbourne's would look more balanced with an independent voice.

Coaching careers cut short
It's odds-on at least one of the Crows, Demons and Bulldogs will give an assistant coach his senior coaching break in the coming weeks.

As excited as that person or persons will be to embark on their new career(s), AFL Coaches Association chief executive Danny Frawley will most likely offer them a word of warning when he welcomes them to the senior coaching ranks.

On Thursday, Frawley told The Age the 'career coach' was becoming a rarer and rarer species given the game's obsession with instant success.

Frawley pointed to statistics that showed the average lifespan of a senior coach had dropped from six years and two months three years ago to four years and seven months in 2011. This average will likely drop again following the recent exits of Neil Craig at the Crows and Rodney Eade at the Bulldogs, something Frawley said was "unhealthy" and "archaic".

"We think as an industry, and the AFL is aware of it, that sometimes we're out with the old, in with the new just far too early," Frawley said. "The churn factor is pretty unhealthy."

The Age added the following facts to the picture: seven of 2011's 17 coaches are in their first or second years as a senior coach; there are just three premiership coaches still coaching; and the average age of senior coaches, 42 years and nine months, is a year younger than two seasons ago.

Frawley said coaches who didn't win a flag in their first role generally didn't get a second coaching chance, despite Leigh Matthews' assertion he was a better coach at his second club, the Brisbane Lions.

AFLCA coaching director Paul Armstrong suggested there had to be a better way of determining a good coach than just premiership tallies.

We agree. After all, in the League's 114-year history there have only been 48 premiership coaches. Surely, in that time there have been far more good coaches than that.

There's no better example than Len Smith. The former Fitzroy and Richmond coach never won a premiership, but is credited, as much as anyone, with influencing the modern style of play. Even more so than so brother, six-time Melbourne premiership coach Norm.

Hudson bows out in style
We liked this line from Western Bulldogs ruckman Ben Hudson. Asked by The Age's Peter Hanlon how his retirement would affect the Bulldogs, Hudson joked: "They'll have a day of mourning, then struggle in the next eight to 10 years."

Obviously, Hudson's departure won't leave the Bulldogs' ruck division quite that badly off. In Will Minson and youngsters Jordan Roughead and Ayce Cordy, they seem to have a sound succession plan.

However, in Hudson, they are losing the type of heart-and-soul player who makes a team better and a club a better place to be around.

While players such as Michael Barlow and James Podsiadly may be more celebrated VFL to AFL stories, Hudson's journey from the Mt Gravatt in the QAFL, to Werribee in the VFL, to Adelaide and, finally, the Bulldogs, has been just as impressive.

Over 142 games - 55 for the Crows and 87 for the Bulldogs - Hudson has won respect as a courageous and honest competitor. He's a character too. And the game needs as many of them as it can get.

In short

Brendan Fevola's AFL career may yet be revived after his recent streak of 33 goals from his past five matches for Casey in the VFL, the Herald Sun reports. Casey general manager Brian Woodman told the tabloid only club politics would deny the former Carlton and Brisbane Lions spearhead a third chance in the AFL. The tabloid, itself, wrote that there was rising speculation GWS may recruit Fevola.

If current ladder positions do not change, Geelong will play Hawthorn on Friday night in the opening week of the finals, with Collingwood to play West Coast on the Saturday afternoon, The Age reports. The broadsheet wrote that the AFL's preference was for the Magpies to play on Friday night and the Cats to play on Saturday afternoon. But the need to schedule the other clash in Collingwood's half of the eight - at this stage fifth-placed Carlton v eighth-placed Essendon - and the likelihood that game will be played at the MCG, meant Collingwood may have to play on the Saturday.

Adelaide has ruled out making a play for out-of-favour Port Adelaide midfielder Kane Cornes in this year's trade period, The Advertiser reports. Cornes is contracted to the Power for two more seasons and has said recently he will refuse to be traded to a team outside South Australia.

Leon Davis is considering leaving Collingwood at the end of this season to return home to Perth to play for West Coast, Fremantle or in the WAFL, The West Australian reports. Davis, 30, has played 221 games for the Magpies, but told the paper his desire for his children - Shakari, 7, and Levi, 4, - to grow up with their 15 cousins in Perth may lead to the move.

The views in this story are those of the author and not necessarily those of the clubs or the AFL.