Five-time premiership Hawk Dermott Brereton believes that charisma is the key characteristic that makes a coach successful.
The comments came following the sacking of Essendon coach Ben Rutten, with Brereton crediting a lack of charisma for the former coach’s struggles during his tenure at the Bombers.
“Coaches, you’ve got to have charisma, the one thing I said about Ben Rutten, I didn’t find him a terribly charismatic person,” he said on SEN's Crunch Time.
“(That) doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a great understanding of the game and has great views on it, they can all go together, but the great coaches are charismatic bastards.
“They just live it and breathe it and they have that X-factor, just like the great players.”
For Brereton, the charisma of a coach is an indicator of a pivotal skillset that some senior coaches may not possess.
“Their ability to work with people, their ability to foster younger talent, their ability to bring people along, that’s their human relationship skillset,” he said.
“You want to hear about their battle plan, you want to hear about their game style.
“They just have that little bit of charisma as a person, on top of all the previously outlined.”
With a rumoured return to Richmond as an assistant on the cards for Rutten, Brereton questioned if many assistant coaches wouldn’t be capable of taking on the main role.
“The pathway to be a senior coach is to be an assistant coach for some time but as you’d be well aware, the two jobs are vastly different, yet we step up the assistant coaches.
“How many of these guys are specifically wired to be assistant coaches and not senior coaches?”
Former GWS coach Leon Cameron responded to Brereton, acknowledging the “massive difference” between the two positions.
“When you do a long apprenticeship and all of a sudden you’re lucky enough to secure a (senior) role, you’re 85 per cent prepared but that last 15 per cent is enormous, it’s huge,” he said.
“The juggling of so many different people, clearly you’ve got the football side of it, you have got to be able to coach, got to be able to implement a game plan, you then have got to make sure it’s the right environment to develop players, there’s so much more to it.”
Despite acknowledging the difference, Cameron believes it is difficult to determine whether a coach is better as an assistant.
“Judging coaches whether they are just better assistant coaches over assistant coaches is always going to be an interesting debate, because what do we judge it on, we just look at results.
“If you’ve won a premiership, you’re judged as a recognised senior coach that’s won the ultimate, if you play in finals and haven’t won a premiership or lose a grand final you’ll be a notch down.
“If you have been there for three or four years and it hasn’t worked out, people will judge you and say, ‘maybe it hasn’t worked out for a reason and you’re just an assistant coach.’
“We’re always going to be judged because of the business we’re in.”
Cameron’s former home at GWS is the latest club to elevate an assistant coach into their first senior role, appointing Richmond’s Adam Kingsley as the man to lead the Giants next season.