Kane Cornes: Which AFL preliminary final coach is under the most pressure as we near the end

Australian Rules football knows only one winner - the one with the premiership. An AFL coach can finish the year with a “winning season” but he will not be lauded in the same way his counterparts in international sport draw praise for scoring more wins than losses. So in any AFL season, there is one champ and 17 chumps. MORE CORNES’ COLUMNS: Be that right or wrong, the end result is all AFL coaches are under extreme pressure to succeed. Not even those eight coaches who get through 22 home-and-away games to advance to the finals get to wipe their eyebrows and relax. Essendon rookie coach Ben Rutten might have thought he made a successful start to his career by having the Bombers qualify for the finals. But everyone then reminded him that Essendon had not won a final for an eternity - and he had failed to end the drought. Sydney premiership coach John Longmire can ride the bumps of a first-week exit from the finals because there is something to come later from the Swans’ rise from 16th to seventh in the past 11 months. Across the Harbour Bridge, Greater Western Sydney coach Leon Cameron deserves praise for overcoming a significant injury list to maintain the Giants’ perfect record in finals against the Swans. This leaves five men in the hot seats. Brisbane coach Chris Fagan showed all his frustration while the clock ticked down to leave his Lions as one-point losers in their home semi-final against the Western Bulldogs on Saturday night. Brisbane is developing the reputation as finals pretenders. In the past three seasons under Fagan, Brisbane has a 1-6 win-loss record in finals. Fagan’s preference to work from the interchange bench - rather than in the elevated coaches box where the visibility of the ground is much better - has rightly been questioned. The four coaches who have reached the preliminary finals this weekend have differing pressure points. And only one can survive the cut-throat race to glory and leave a legacy at his club and on the competition. But which of the four is under the most pressure? 1. Chris Scott Fortunately for Scott, Geelong was again able to rebound after another qualifying final loss to Port Adelaide by beating the Giants in Perth in the semi-finals. This enhanced his record in finals since the 2011 premiership to 7-14, a meagre 33 per cent success rate that contrasts his 72 per cent strike rate in home-and-away games. For all his achievements and his ability to keep guiding Geelong to finals, there is the stain of last year’s grand final in which a 15-point lead was coughed up to Richmond. There is the feeling among some Geelong supporters that this group has underachieved. Scott’s negative public language during the season is reflective of the pressure he must be feeling. He has used his weekly media conferences to take aim at the length of the season, the duration of the game, the pre-finals bye being scrapped and the lack of enjoyment he receives from being a coach. On Wednesday, he blasted Dr Peter Larkins as unprofessional for describing the Geelong medicos as “delusional” in their forecasts on the recovery of injured defender Tom Stewart. Geelong is the AFL’s oldest said. This is Scott’s last shot at winning a premiership with this core group of players. Should they fail, Carlton will undoubtedly make a play to lure him to the chair lost by David Teauge. 2. Ken Hinkley Hinkley will lead Port Adelaide to his third preliminary final as coach on Saturday night. Hinkley’s first attempt was against Hawthorn in 2014 when Port Adelaide wasted repeated opportunities at the MCG scoring 3.9 in the opening term. The Power lost by three points. Last year, at Adelaide Oval, it was a six-point loss to Richmond. Now the Western Bulldogs await him at home. Despite no win against a top-four side until round 23 and the need to send 15 players to hospital wards for surgery, everything has turned in the Power’s favour at the right time. Hinkley has a full squad and Port Adelaide is the only team to have the luxury of two finals at home. The Western Bulldogs have travelled from Melbourne to Tasmania to Queensland to Perth and now to Adelaide in the past three weeks. Their best player and captain Marcus Bontempelli is under a significant injury cloud with a sore knee. Next season will mark Hinkley’s 10th at the helm - the longest stretch granted to any coach without a premiership. Hinkley has the opportunity to become Port Adelaide’s second AFL premiership coach. His side is in the box seat, but can it handle the pressure? 3. Luke Beveridge The Western Bulldogs were a top-four team for 20 of 23 weeks during the home-and-away season. Then they made life harder for themselves by losing the last three games of the year and finishing fifth. The pressure was firmly directed at Beveridge as the start of this finals campaign. Wins against Essendon and Brisbane have eased some of the scrutiny on Beveridge and his club. In 2016 Beveridge achieved one of the most remarkable and unlikely premierships in AFL history in rising to glory from seventh by winning four consecutive finals to break a 62-year premiership drought. If the Bulldogs match this feat this season, it will be an even greater accomplishment. Considering the travel burden and Bontempelli’s woes, Beveridge would become an all-time great should he collect a second flag. 4. Simon Goodwin Nathan Buckley at Collingwood and Goodwin were the coaches under the most pressure entering the season. Buckley lost his job after round 11. Goodwin has hardly put a foot wrong. Goodwin took Melbourne to the preliminary finals in 2018 before capitulating to also fans in 2019 and 2020. His job was under threat. Goodwin will be entrenched in Melbourne folklore should he be the first Melbourne coach to win a premiership since the legendary Norm Smith in 1964. In the next three weeks the legacy of one of these four coaches will change forever. Who will deliver under the rising pressure?

Kane Cornes: Which AFL preliminary final coach is under the most pressure as we near the end

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