Tom Hafey - Hafey's Coaching "school"

Hafey's Coaching "school"

A notable legacy of Hafey's coaching career is the remarkable number of men that played under him at Richmond who later went onto success as coaches themselves. At VFL/AFL level, these include premiership coaches Tony Jewell (at Richmond), Kevin Sheedy (at Essendon) and Mick Malthouse (at West Coast and Collingwood), as well as Kevin Bartlett, Royce Hart, Francis Bourke, Paul Sproule, Mike Patterson, Mick Erwin (who actually replaced Hafey when he was sacked by Collingwood), Neil Balme, John Northey, Ian Stewart and Barry Richardson. In addition, a number of his former players had important careers coaching at lower levels of the game, such as Merv Keane and Kevin Morris.