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.
3. Chris Scott - Geelong, 2011, 2022
Scott hasn't just become a two-time premiership-winning coach at Geelong; he and the club have changed how teams across the league prepare during the off-season, how clubs trust their players, how sides train week-to-week and how the competition treats and regards its veteran players.
The now-50-year-old won a premiership in his first season at the helm at 35. No mean feat even if it was off the back of Thompson's dominant reign at Geelong from 2007-10.
Scott and his Cats would go on to feature in an incredible 10 preliminary finals (2011, 2013, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2024 and 2025) since he took over. That's 10 out of 15 seasons he has featured in at least the second last week of the season.
The Cats have only missed finals twice during his time, finishing 10th in 2015 and 12th in 2023.
Scott's second grand final victory boosted him up this list as he turned from being an unbelievably consistent and quality coach to a legend of the game when he and Geelong trounced Sydney by 81 points in 2022.
Not too many people have been as consistently successful and have impacted the game on and off the field as much as Scott.
