FOR THE sake of sanity and good health, one hopes the five new AFL senior coaches are not numbers men. The statistics don't bode well for long and successful careers at the top.

Brendan McCartney (Western Bulldogs), Mark Neeld (Melbourne), Brenton Sanderson (Adelaide), Nathan Buckley (Collingwood) and Scott Watters (St Kilda) will all be thrown into the fire next March as first-time senior coaches. They will join a list of 38 others who have been appointed to a top job without prior senior experience since the League moved to a top-eight finals system in 1994.

In those 18 seasons, every club has taken at least one chance on a new coach.

McCartney is the Bulldogs' second go after Peter Rohde. Neeld is the Demons' third senior coach to be hired (so not including caretaker coaches) post-1994 and he is the club's third first-time boss.

Adelaide have been loath to hire inexperienced bosses with Neil Craig the club's first, but the Crows have again rolled the dice with Sanderson.

Collingwood took a chance on premiership winning skipper Tony Shaw but have had the experienced Mick Malthouse at the helm for well over a decade.

St Kilda has had six senior coaches since 1994 and all have started without coaching a senior team, except Malcolm Blight in 2001, who marginally made it past the halfway mark of the season.

Since the start of the 1994 season, only six of the 38 new coaching faces went on to win the flag, combining for just seven of the 18 premierships: Mark Williams (2004), Paul Roos (2005), John Worsfold (2006), Mark Thompson (2007 and 2009), Alastair Clarkson (2008) and Chris Scott (2011).

Only Scott won a flag in his first season. The road was longer for the other select few who made it with Roos and Clarkson winning in their fourth year in charge, Worsfold winning in his fifth, Williams in his sixth and Thompson in his eighth.

Of the six premiership winning coaches to debut after the '93 season, Roos, Clarkson and Williams were the only coaches not to play in a VFL/AFL premiership, though Williams was a four-time SANFL premiership winner with Port Adelaide. 

Premiership success as a player does not necessarily equate to premiership success as a coach, though, but one assumes it is beneficial.

Of the 38 coaching debutants in the top-eight era, 18 (or 47.4 per cent) have played in a VFL/AFL premiership with another three playing in a SANFL or WAFL flag.

Not one of the recent hires won a premiership as a player.

Out of the players-turned coaches who did not win a flag when playing, only Ross Lyon has been hired to a second job (though Clarkson and Matthew Primus remain in their first).

The average career span for a coach who has not played in a premiership is just over four seasons, but take out those coaches who have led their team to a Grand Final in their first four years (Roos, Clarkson, Lyon, Daniher) and it is just 3.25.

Only Fremantle's Chris Connolly (six), St Kilda's Grant Thomas (six) and Richmond's Danny Frawley (five) survived beyond the average without taking their respective teams to a premiership decider.

Getting a job as a coach who didn't play at least 100 AFL games is also difficult.

Before this recent round of hirings that saw McCartney secured without having played a senior game and Neeld having played just 79, only 11 coaching debutants have been hired having played fewer than 100 senior matches.

Take out Neil Craig and Gerard Neesham, who played over 200-games apiece in the SANFL and WAFL respectively, and that number falls to nine.

Between Wayne Brittain, Michael Nunan, Damian Drum, Chris Connolly, Ken Judge, Neale Daniher, Dean Bailey, Jeff Gieschen and Grant Thomas, only one Grand Final was reached, while four led their teams to the wooden spoon. Only Brittain, Judge, Daniher and Thomas coached a final.  Five did not survive a fourth season.

Only Brittain, as with McCartney, didn’t play senior football. He lasted two seasons at Carlton before being sacked after taking the team from top-four to wooden spooners.

The coaching debutants should expect some level of improvement in their teams with fresh coaches improving the ladder position of their teams by an average of 1.03 positions in their first year. A total of 17 coaches have improved the ladder positions of their teams in their debut seasons while 13 have seen their teams regress.

Only Rodney Eade (Sydney Swans, 1996, 12th to 1st) and Neale Daniher (Melbourne, 1998, 16th to 4th) have improved their clubs by more than six ladder positions.

Mark Harvey has had the biggest drop, taking over the third-placed Fremantle and seeing them fall to 11th in 2007.

That improvement falls to only a 0.8-position improvement by the second season, however, with only 17 of 30 coaches having a higher ladder position after two seasons in charge than when they took over.

That improvement is also unlikely to lead to much tangible success early on. Nine times has a coaching debutant taken his team from a non-finals side to a top-eight team but only five times has that team come from 13th or below to play finals footy, as Neeld will have to do with Melbourne and Sanderson will have to do with Adelaide. Only twice has a coach improved his side from 13th or worse to seventh or better in his first year.

The challenges for Watters and Buckley are different. They take over sides coming off finals football.

Nine times in the last 18 seasons has a first-time coach taken over a team coming off a finals appearance: the average fall has been 2.8 ladder positions, only once has that team improved (Gary Ayres, Geelong, 1995, fourth to second) and only four times did that team back-up with another finals showing.

John Longmire this season was the only coach in that time to take over a bottom-four finals team and keep it in the finals.

Age is another interesting factor when it comes to coaching. Next year, three coaches over the age of 40 will debut. Since 1994, only 14 mentors have been given their first senior appointment when 40 or older with only Mark Williams going on to win a flag and just Stan Alves and Ross Lyon coaching a Grand Final. Six 40-plus debutants never coached a final.

There has been little success among those coaches joining the senior ranks after the age of 40.

Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is important but what they conceal is vital. So all these stats must be taken with a grain of salt.

But there is no doubt that recent history suggests not playing in a premiership will count against McCartney, Neeld, Sanderson, Buckley and Watters. Playing fewer than 100 senior games could mean less time for McCartney or Neeld.

Taking up a senior post after the age of 40 is a risk for the Bulldogs, Demons and Saints. Starting with a top-eight side means Buckley and particularly Watters, with a bottom-four finals team, will likely need to go down before returning.

Senior coaching in the AFL is a tough game. Few make it. And even fewer succeed.

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