Dual AFLW premiership coach Craig Starcevich has rebuffed interest from Collingwood, led by former premiership-winning teammate and Collingwood CEO Craig Kelly, to help the struggling Magpies.
The 59-year-old has extended his record as the league’s longest-serving coach at one club by committing to a new three-year deal with the Brisbane Lions, telling his player on Wednesday morning alongside CEO Sam Graham.
Fledgling club Tasmania had also been interested in signing him.
With the Magpies, St Kilda, and Essendon all seeking new senior coaches – each club having registered just one win each in disastrous seasons – and Tasmania in the wings to join the competition, Starcevich said the Lions were “the most powerful club” in the men’s and women’s leagues because of their strong one-club culture.
Starcevich, speaking to this masthead, said the Lions’ workplace culture, staff and academy players were major drawcards in keeping him at Brighton Homes Arena.
“I’ll be very biased here and just say that the Brisbane Lions is the most powerful club in the AFL at the moment,” he said.
“We run strong programs in both [men’s and women’s]. So it’s just a great place to be in terms of our sport and our industry.”
Starcevich confirmed he’d received a call from Collingwood to gauge his interest in returning to Victoria to rebuild the Magpies’ AFLW program.
In addition to their poor results this season, Collingwood have also recently lost captain Ruby Schleicher amid calls to change their struggling AFLW program, with several senior players voicing concerns about a lack of improvement and direction.
Starcevich said the call from Collingwood came “quite late” and that he had already committed to re-signing with the Lions.
“That’s something I couldn’t really give too much consideration to at all,” he said.
But Starcevich did consider Tasmania, who are currently seeking their inaugural AFLW coach for 2028.
“Yeah, I did [give it a lot of thought] because it was intriguing because it had some of the hallmarks of what we did 10, 11 years ago in setting up the Lions,” he said.
“From that aspect, it was definitely something to have a close look at. But, at the end of the day, I love our club and our people too much, so it was going to be really difficult for me to move away from Brisbane.
“So that’s that’s essentially where it landed.”
While the Lions have, uncharacteristically, struggled this season, they are a benchmark for long-term success in the AFLWwith the team winning two premierships and making seven grand finals under Starcevich. That success is the envy of the league, with some clubs marooned at the bottom of the ladder, and facing external and internal concerns around the direction of their programs.
St Kilda recently announced an independent investigation into their AFLW program following their poor season and resignation of long-time coach Nick Dal Santo.
On Tuesday, Sam Wright announced he would step down as Collingwood’s senior AFLW coach, as the club grapples with a potential exodus of senior players.
When asked the major factor behind the Lions’ AFLW success, Starcevich highlighted the “one-club mentality” and support from the club’s leadership.
He and Danielle Smith, the club’s general manager of AFLW, have 15 minutes with the Lions’ board every month for a catch-up.
“I have this sense of gratitude that we’ve always had that group of people in our corner driving our program and supportive of our program … we were the first club to purpose build a facility to house both female and men’s programs,” he said.
“The proof in the pudding is that you can co-exist and to the benefit of each other.”
Starcevich said the men’s and women’s program had crossover across gym sessions and often mingled in the corridor together, bouncing ideas off each other.
“You walk through the front door, and they’re all Brisbane Lions people. They’re not just Brisbane Lions AFL men’s or AFLW, it’s one big Brisbane Lions footy club.”
He said the Lions had previously experienced some teething issues around a club adjusting to two football programs in their early days at the Gabba, which a number of AFLW continue to wrestle with.
“You were never deliberately separated, but when you have a facility that historically was only built to house one team, to then add another team, then you try to fit everything to make it work, I can see where the stresses come from, when you try and do that.
“I would say in the five years that we’ve been out at Springfield, that’s the last thing on our minds now.”
The season has been a challenging year for the Lions who are set to miss finals for the first time since 2019.
Starcevich pointed to an extensive injury list for the reason behind the Lions’ poor performance, with hamstring issues for stalwart Ally Anderson, wrist problems for Jade Ellenger and Courtney Hodder’s unavailability this year due to pregnancy.
But the senior coach is adamant if the season was three to six games longer, the Lions would be “coming home pretty strongly”.
“In the men’s comp, you can absorb four or five weeks of some rough patches and you can get self-going again. But in our comp, you can’t, and that’s just life.”
He said his team had “fire in the belly” for next year and was excited to see a strong batch of Lions Academy crew coming through.
Starcevich joked there was sometimes “southern state snobbery in football”.
“No one expects any northern state club to be setting the pace. So that’s that’s given us great satisfaction.”
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