Given the availability of outstanding senior coaching prospects like Nathan Buckley, Damien Hardwick and John Longmire, it won’t be easy for Crocker and Rawlings to convince their clubs’ boards they should respectively replace Dean Laidley and Terry Wallace from 2010.

Still, history tells us eight of the 13 caretaker coaches appointed since 1996 used their limited time at the helm to successfully audition for their clubs’ senior roles.

So what do Crocker and Rawlings have to do to emulate them?

According to the records of the caretakers since 1996, the one sure-fire way is to compile a winning rate of better than 50 per cent. Four of these coaches did – Peter Rohde (100 per cent, but he was a caretaker in just one game), Jeff Gieschen (80 per cent), Paul Roos (60 per cent) and Mark Harvey (57 per cent) – and all were subsequently appointed full-time.

Both Gieschen and Roos were, at stages, considered outsiders in the race for their teams’ senior roles, but both built such momentum and supporter backing in their caretaking stints they forced their clubs’ hands.

At the other end of the spectrum, Brett Ratten was confirmed as Blues senior coach at the end of 2007, despite losing all six games he coached after taking over from Denis Pagan in round 17.

At St Kilda, Grant Thomas was officially anointed as Malcolm Blight’s successor after leading the Saints to just one win from their final seven games in 2001, while Terry’s Wallace’s 30 per cent winning record at the Bulldogs in 1996 and Neil Craig’s 44 per cent record at Adelaide in 2004 were also enough for both to secure their sides’ top jobs.  

The best winning rate of a caretaker not subsequently appointed senior coach was Donald McDonald’s 40 per cent at Hawthorn in 2004, while in 2007 Mark Riley was overlooked for the Demons’ top job after compiling a 33 per cent winning record.

Read the full story in the round 13 edition of the AFL Record, available at all grounds.