King: Clarko got “old”, his sacking is not a shock

Dual premiership Kangaroo David King said he was not surprised by Alastair Clarkson being sacked by North Melbourne, admitting the coach “got old”.

Speaking alongside Kane Cornes in an emergency Fireball podcast, hours after the news was made public, King also took aim at Sonja Hood and Todd Viney for being a “fraction disrespectful” of Clarkson in their press conference.

While speaking to the media from Arden Street on Wednesday afternoon, both Hood and Viney suggested Clarkson had not adapted to the modern game enough for the club to retain faith in their leader.

They also confirmed the dismissal had been a “unanimous” decision.

“Was it a surprise? No,” King said. “You get information along the way; but the simple fact is Clarko got old. When you’re talking to young people, you know when your grandpa’s stories are too long, a little bit of that.

“The game plan wasn’t cutting edge and the players knew it. They talk to other clubs, find out information, they realise they’re not doing any of it.

“All in all when the snowball starts, it gets so huge that something has to give.

“The easy option was to let Clarko coach out 2027 because there’s a contract. But that wastes a season.

“Did I know it would be today? No. But did I know something was looming to a point where either Clarko would blow the place up – which he can and he’s done it before – or they were going to take this action.”

Joining the Roos in 2023, Clarkson won just 20 of his 82 games in charge, dragging North Melbourne through their rebuild before guiding the club to their best record since 2019.

The coach joined the club after a two-year absence from head coaching, having handed over the reigns to Sam Mitchell at Hawthorn after a legendary spell across the late 2000s and 2010s.

When it comes to how the club handled the dismissal, King said he felt that the amount of information that was shared was a “fraction disrespectful”.

“You have to understand where this club was four years ago,” he continued. “They’d been through a load of coaches over a short space of time.

“They were going to purge a lot of players. They were gone for a decade; they needed someone to come in with the hard hat on and get on. First year was a disaster, it never really covered, the players lost faith.

“They hadn’t seen stability in their team. I understood the original appointment, I was rapt. It hasn’t work but the years he was there are important. The easy option was to roll on next year and hope for a miracle.

“I think they (Viney and Hood) said too much. I think they were a fraction disrespectful. They went a step too far you don’t need to explain everything.

“I don’t like it on the way out. A guy gives you four years, just say ‘We needed him, he did as good as he could, we decided we’re stable enough and we can charge forward with someone fresh’.”

King did however commend the club for their decision.

“This is a call they could have shied away from. I commend them on being brave to make this call but it’s about getting the next decision right. That’s a question – who should be trusted to make that?”

Western Bulldogs coach Luke Beveridge was stunned when told about Clarko's dismissal likening the current lifeline of an AFL coach to the English Premier League.

“Really," he said taken aback by the information as he fronted the media ahead of his side's elimination final this weekend.

“Jeez … I could say so much, but I’d prefer to say very little, because what can you say?

“I think the difficult thing with what we’re all doing is it’s a different culture now in our code.

“We’ve almost become like the EPL (English Premier League), where senior coaches’ tenure and your own coaching mortality is speculated about a lot more than it used to be.

“As opposed to, say, the NFL, where you can have a winning season, and that’s considered a success.”

Expressing his concern by what the future holds for the next generation of coaches, Beveridge added: “Do they actually really want to put them in the situation where, from the start of their tenure, their vocational sustainability is speculated upon?

“You know, it’s not a nice place to live. Clarko’s been an amazing coach and an amazing custodian of the game … obviously really outspoken, and someone who’s pushed his own opinions to make the game better.

“Obviously, I spent three years with him at the Hawks, had a really successful time and got enormous value and experience out of that. He’s a resilient and durable guy, and he’ll be fine.

“But today, I’m feeling for him after that news has broken, and we all know that he’s going to be okay.

“But it’s … as I said, I used that word ‘disconcerting’. That’s probably an appropriate word for it.”