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Who is the greatest Australian sports coach

2011-12-13 02:12:00

Harry Hopman is the undisputed greatest coach in Australia’s rich sporting history. But Ric Charlesworth is chipping away at being the next best.

“The Fox” Hopman coached the Davis Cup team for 22 years from 1938-1939 and 1950-1969, winning 16 and runner-up in five. He only missed out in his final year in 1969.

An extraordinary record; without peer.

Hopman was a more than handy player, three times singles runner-up to Jack Crawford at the Australian, a two-time Slam doubles champion at the Australian, and five times mixed at the Australian and Forest Hills.

But his Davis Cup teams read like a “Who’s who of world tennis”: John Bromwich, Adrian Quist, Frank Sedgman, Ken McGregor, Lew Hoad, Ken Rosewall, Mervyn Rose, Rex Hartwig, Ashley Cooper, Mal Anderson, Neale Fraser, Rod Laver, Fred Stolle, Tony Roche, and John Newcombe,

Laver’s the only two-time Grand Slam winner in the history of the sport, and between them they won 67 Slam singles crowns. In that golden period, if an Australian didn’t win every Slam there was almost a Royal Commission.

On the Hopman watch Australia dominated world tennis, he was the catalyst. Not like the sorry state of the last 35 years when only Pat Cash, Pat Rafter, and Lleyton Hewitt have claimed five Slams between them.

Hopman was very special, but hockey’s Charlesworth (now 59), is the combination of champion player, and champion coach.

But before hockey captivated his representative interest, left-handed batsman Charlesworth played 47 Sheffield Shield games for Western Australia, scoring 2,327 runs at 30.22, as a member of four Shield winning sides.

His powers of concentration knew no bounds; a Rock of Gibraltar. Bowlers needed to blast him out with dynamite. Paint dried and grass grew faster than Charlesworth scored runs.

But he was an all-out attacking hockey player who captained his country during most of the latter part of his 227 caps. He was selected for five Olympic Games, but didn’t go to Moscow because of the boycott.

And in the process won silver at the 1976 Olympics and the World Cup in 1986.

Charlesworth coached the Hockeyroos from 1993 to 2000, capturing gold at the 1996 and 2000 Olympics and Commonwealth Games gold in 1998.

Add to that four Champions Trophies and a couple of World Cups.

And more recently, he has coached the Kookaburras since 2009. He’s won the Champions Trophy in 2009 and 2010, and is unbeaten in Auckland in the current Champions Trophy: all set for three on the trot from as many attempts.

Add last year’s World Cup, and Commonwealth Games gold in Delhi and Charlesworth is still on an amazing winning streak.

And as if he’s had “nothing on his plate”, Charlesworth was the Labor member for Perth in Canberra from 1983 to 1993.

Pushing Dr Ric Charlesworth for Australia’s all-time great coach’s silver medal are Rod Macqueen, Mal Meninga, and Wayne Bennett.

Macqueen is the most successful Wallaby coach ever with a 79.1% success rate, winning the 1999 World Cup, the Bledisloe Cup, the Tri-Nations, and the only series win in Australia over the British and Irish Lions.

Daylight is second.

Meninga’s won six successive rugby league Origin series wins from as many attempts, a record. He’s recently signed for another four years and it would take a brave punter to back against Meninga winning 10 on the bounce.

No coach will ever match six, let alone 10.

And Bennett has won seven NRL premierships, six with the Broncos and one with the Saints. His closest rivals – the late great Jack Gibson with five – three with Parramatta, and two with the Roosters, and Tim Sheens with four – three with the Raiders, and one with Wests-Tigers.

Coaching can be a thankless job. But the big five have done their sports and themselves proud.

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