Coaching in the AFL is a chalice that can be poisoned or make you immortal.
That's the deal made when someone agrees to become a head coach of an AFL club 99.9 per cent of the time: If you win a premiership, you are a success; anything less and you have failed. It's as ruthless a business as any.
The pressure internally and externally, the media scrutiny, would become all-encompassing. Just look at what Carlton coach Michael Voss is experiencing right now as people list the best person to become the Blues coach while he is still at the helm.
But for all its flaws, it is so heavily desired by the competitive few who seek eternal glory and have a deep burning desire to become a premiership-winning coach.
Having been born in the first year of the 21st century, that is where this ranking list shall begin. The work of coaches from 2000 to the present will be the main source of argument, but the ability to look further back in time at their exploits can be used as a form of tie-breaker.
To enter the top 10, a coach must have won a premiership, so St Kilda's Ross Lyon, despite leading two of the league's "smaller teams" to a total of three (four if you count the draw) grand finals, is omitted from the pool.
9. Luke Beveridge - Western Bulldogs, 2016
What Beveridge achieved at the Western Bulldogs in his early days was nothing short of incredible.
A club that held the then-longest premiership drought in the league was stuck at the bottom of the ladder when Beveridge arrived in 2014 and had just lost its captain, Ryan Griffin, to GWS.
Within three years, Beveridge had turned that motley crew into a late-season freight train from hell in 2016.
The Bulldogs' run to their first grand final since 1961 and first premiership since 1954 will make him part of Footscray and AFL folklore for the rest of footballing history.
He also led the Bulldogs to another grand final in 2021.
Could have been further up on this list had he capitalised on the talent that he has had at The Kennel in recent years, but consistency remains an enemy of him and the Bulldogs.
However, nothing can take away what he did for the people of the western suburbs of Melbourne a decade ago.
