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.
5. Alastair Clarkson - Hawthorn, 2008, 2013, 2014, 2015
The most controversial ranking on this list, given Clarkson has won the equal-most flags of any coach this century and led Hawthorn to a famous three-peat across 2013-15.
Clarkson was a key figurehead behind Hawthorn's revival from being a middling-bottom end of the ladder side throughout the mid-early 2000s.
After taking over as head coach for the 2005 season, the Hawks received an influx of generational talent in the form of Lance Franklin, Jarryd Roughead and Jordan Lewis through the draft. These young guns would be the catalyst for Clarkson's rebirth of the Hawks as the young side made finals two seasons later, before producing a major upset in the 2008 grand final. Downing a scary Geelong side by 26 points.
The Hawks would plateau for a few seasons before going on a run of four straight grand final appearances from 2012-15, which resulted in a hat trick of flags for the likes of Clarkson, Roughead, Lewis, Luke Hodge, Cyril Rioli and Sam Mitchell.
The reasoning, perhaps unfair, for Clarkson being placed fifth on this list is simply due to two main reasons. The first being that Clarkson had a surplus of incredible assistant coaches by his side that would go on to be premiership coaches in their own right, in Chris Fagan, Damien Hardwick, Adam Simpson, Luke Beveridge and Leon Cameron (made a grand final).
Secondly, because we like or hate it, interstate flags are harder to win than at mainstream clubs in Victoria. And there are a couple of interstate coaches that sit above him on this list.
If Clarkson can lead North Melbourne to a premiership in his second stint as coach, he will move immediately to the top of the list and will stay there forevermore.
