The Tasmania Devils AFL team has been confronted with a unique problem in its hunt for an inaugural coach.
Rather than needing to woo a big name to the island state, the Devils find themselves beset by the tyranny of an insanely hard choice: Nathan Buckley, Ken Hinkley or John Longmire?
It’s an incredibly formidable trio, and one that any club in the AFL would like to have knocking at its door.
So why Tassie for these three, who realistically could walk into just about any football job they wanted?
For champions, legacy trumps all.
The Tasmania Devils men’s team will officially enter the AFL as the 19th club in the 2028 season. (Supplied: Tasmania Football Club)
Tasmania won’t win too many games in its first few years.
It won’t have a training and admin facility fully finished until well into its first season, and it won’t have a new stadium until 2031.
The Tasmania job will be one of footy’s toughest, and the coach will have an impatient footy-mad public breathing down their neck.
In Tasmania lies an opportunity that cannot be replicated at other clubs, save for maybe St Kilda and the flag-less Fremantle.
Nathan Buckley, the champion former Collingwood midfielder, Brownlow and Norm Smith medallist and 2018 almost-Collingwood premiership coach, has not been able to resist the siren song of Tasmania.
Such has been his enthusiasm that last year he forfeited a chance to coach the Melbourne football club by telling the Demons he needed time to weigh the opportunity up against that of potentially coaching the Devils in 2028.
Nathan Buckley also played for Collingwood as captain. (Getty Images: Scott Barbour)
He has met with Devils bosses to discuss the role and taken up an assistant coach role at Geelong in a bid to brush up on the coaching caper, ahead of the Devils’ entry in 2028.
It speaks to the meticulous preparation that Buckley became known for during his playing career. It is also said that Buckley’s behind-closed-doors vision for the Devils is highly impressive.
It would be harsh to interpret Buckley’s enthusiasm as a bad thing, but there’s an argument that Buckley is almost too keen.
Immortality will come for any coach that leads Tasmania to a premiership, but before that, there will be young players to nurture and losses to endure.
Tassie is a far cry from Collingwood, where Buckley last coached, a place dripping in wealth and where Buckley was considered a god.
While his transformation from ego-driven competitor to a more mellow mentor of men is well documented, is Buckley — a man who was known as FIGJAM (it’s an acronym, look it up) during his playing days — the guy to galvanise the state?
Or is that man Ken Hinkley?
Ken Hinkley is the longest-serving coach of any AFL club to not qualify for a grand final. (AAP: Matt Turner)
In Hinkley, Tasmania would be getting the experience it needs and the salesman it craves.
It wants to replicate what Scott Roth did at the JackJumpers and buy into a coach who is fiercely loyal to his playing group and his adopted state.
Club bosses have declared they want their coach to come with some “grey hair”. Hinkley, in their eyes, would be Tasmania’s dad.
His coaching record isn’t bad either; 174 wins, 124 losses and eight finals series reached across 13 seasons with Port Adelaide.
He propelled the Power out of its infamous “tarp era”, brought fans back to the footy, and transformed the club from laughing-stock to finals contender.
But does Hinkley want Tasmania as much as Tasmania wants him? He’s been far less vocal than Buckley in his desire to move south.
Age is, of course, just a number, but at 59, how many years of early pain might Hinkley tolerate?
How willing is he to make a full-time move to Tasmania, to develop draftees in the rain?
Is the lure of legacy strong enough for Hinkley? Does he believe he can win in Tasmania early on?
And what of John Longmire, who also wants the job, according to reports.
John Longmire (right), with Swans recruit former Hawthorn star Lance Franklin, in 2013. (AAP: Dan Himbrechts)
Longmire is clearly the best credentialed football coach of the three with 12 finals appearances across 14 years, including five grand finals and the 2012 premiership while at the helm of his famously strait-laced Sydney Swans.
On paper, he’s a lock, and the fire still burns, having stepped back into coaching with the Sydney Swans under-18s last year.
He was also an onlooker at the Under-18 championships in Western Sydney last week.
Longmire, though, is an actions, not words, guy.
His sales pitch to the state would come through the deeds of his players, rather than via roadshows and meet-and-greets.
He’s all business and no fuss.
He’d be dry, dour and a disciplinarian, and probably command the highest salary too, given the strength of his coaching CV.
Then there’s the externals.
The expectation. The responsibility. The politics in a state where the sceptical and the suspicious worry that the Tasmania Devils are a Hobart thing only.
These things weren’t really a thing for Longmire in the harbour city.
But perhaps winning football games from the get-go is the best way to the Tasmanian football fan’s heart, and if John Longmire wants to coach your start-up team, you just say yes.
It’s yet another problem for the Tasmania Devils, but at least this problem is a good one to have.
