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.
7. John Longmire - Sydney, 2012
One of football's great minds and leaders, and someone who appears destined to one day pick up the coaching reins again.
Having taken over from his predecessor at the Swans and this list, Roos, Longmire quickly forged his own name among AFL ranks and history as he took Sydney to its second grand final victory in seven years in 2012.
The grand final was a memorable see-sawing affair that saw Longmire's Swans outlast Alastair Clarkson's Hawks.
The Hawks-Swans rivalry would continue in 2014, when Clarkson got revenge on Longmire in the grand final.
Longmire led Sydney to an incredible further three grand final days, losing to the Bulldogs in 2016, before getting thumped by Geelong in 2022 and again by Brisbane in 2024.
Despite the tough ending to his time as head coach, Longmire did an incredible job to keep an interstate club - and one in rugby heartland for that matter - alive and thriving as the Swans featured in finals every year bar two during his reign from 2011-24.
An incredible achievement from someone who should not be lost to coaching.
