In my opinion, James Hird will not make it as a coach and will probably end up like Voss. A Very popular, talented footballer with next to no coaching experience who will find the transition from playing to coaching very difficult. There's no doubt that as players they both knew how to back themselves by winning games with their own sheer talent, but getting this across to the players as a coach and making it work is a whole different kettle of fish.
As a rule its the tough hard mongrels are the ones who make good coaches, not the purebred poodles Like Hird and Voss who win best of show every week.
There are some exceptions like Neil Balme who was a tough mongrel on the field but a pretty ordinary coach and Malcolm Blight who was an obvious poodle who had some good success as a coach. But if you look at my list below, you will see that many good coaches were hard nut mongrels as players.
Discuss...
Mongrels
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Matthews
Thompson
Hardwick
Harvey
Worsfold
Malthouse
Roos
Jeans
Hafey
Eade
Sheedy
Poodles
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Walls
Wallace
Bartlett
Knights (Matthew & Peter)
Jesaulenko
Buckenara
Voss
and now Hird