Richmond coach Damien Hardwick is carving out an awesome reputation as a winner of premierships in the AFL competition.
Hardwick has been directly involved in the most AFL premierships by any individual so far this century.
He won two as a player – one with Essendon (2000) and another at Port Adelaide (2004) – and has coached the Tigers to three premierships (2017, 2019, 2020). And he also was an assistant coach at Hawthorn when it captured the 2008 flag.
Throughout the entire history of AFL/VFL football, only six men have more combined (as a player and coach) premierships than Hardwick – Norm Smith and Ron Barassi with 10 apiece, Jock McHale nine, Leigh Matthews eight, and Frank ‘Checker’ Hughes and Kevin Sheedy, both with seven.
In pure coaching terms, there are just 12 men who have guided their teams to more premierships at the game’s highest level than Hardwick – McHale eight, Smith six, Hughes and Jack Worrall five, Barassi, Sheedy, Parkin, Matthews, Dick Reynolds, Tommy Hafey, Allan Jeans and Alastair Clarkson all with four.
