{"id":880460,"date":"2026-09-05T03:30:27","date_gmt":"2026-09-05T03:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/880460\/"},"modified":"2026-09-05T03:30:27","modified_gmt":"2026-09-05T03:30:27","slug":"alastair-clarkson-opens-up-about-sacking-as-kangaroos-afl-coach","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/880460\/","title":{"rendered":"Alastair Clarkson opens up about sacking as Kangaroos AFL coach"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Alastair Clarkson says he and his family have been &#8220;publicly humiliated&#8221; by the way North Melbourne handled his sacking as head coach.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Clarkson has given his first interview since <a class=\"Link_link__kR0xA Link_link__5eL5m ScreenReaderOnly_srLinkHint__OysWz Link_showVisited__C1Fea Link_showFocus__ALyv2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2026-09-02\/alastair-clarkson-and-north-melbourne-part-ways\/107106496\" data-component=\"Link\" data-uri=\"coremedia:\/\/article\/107106496\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">being let go by the Kangaroos on Wednesday<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Kangaroos president Sonja Hood and football boss Todd Viney were brutally honest at their media conference in explaining why Clarkson was sacked with a year to go on his contract.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Clarkson, a four-time premiership coach at Hawthorn, said his family felt insulted by Hood and Viney&#8217;s appearance in front of reporters.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">&#8220;We&#8217;re just shocked, and we just thought we were owed a little bit of respect in being informed and warned,&#8221; Clarkson told The Age.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.net.au\/news\/2026-09-02\/alastair-clarkson-and-north-melbourne-part-ways\/107106496\" data-component=\"FullBleedLink\" class=\"RelatedCard_link__rsgR9 FullBleedLink_root__lTw_U interactive_focusContext__yRhc_ interactive_defaults__AKxUU FullBleedLink_showVisited__g3Xvz\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Alastair Clarkson leaves North<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"Typography_base__sj2RP RelatedCard_synopsis__cFwMW Typography_sizeMobile14__u7TGe Typography_lineHeightMobile20___U7Vr Typography_regular__WeIG6 Typography_colourInherit__dfnUx\" data-component=\"Typography\">North Melbourne president Sonja Hood and football boss Todd Viney explain why the club is parting ways with Alastair Clarkson with a year to run on his deal.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">&#8220;Instead, they chose to dance on my grave like this.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Clarkson, who coached the Kangaroos for four seasons, added: &#8220;We all feel \u2026 so publicly humiliated.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">He rejected suggestions his relationships with players and staff had deteriorated.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">&#8220;Is that all my fault, is it?&#8221; Clarkson said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">&#8220;My mantra has never changed, and that has been to have care and empathy to help players chase their dream.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">&#8220;I feel like my life&#8217;s shot.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Premiership coaches John Longmire and Adam Simpson have been floated as options to take over from Clarkson, due to their stature as champion former Kangaroos players.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">But after watching first-time coaches Steven King and Josh Fraser succeed this year, the Kangaroos could be inclined to find a highly rated assistant.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">Jaymie Graham (Fremantle), Corey Enright (St Kilda) and James Kelly (Geelong) were in contention for the Carlton job, before Fraser&#8217;s results as interim coach made him the only choice for the Blues.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paragraph_paragraph___QITb\">AAP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alastair Clarkson says he and his family have been &#8220;publicly humiliated&#8221; by the way North Melbourne handled his&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":880461,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[1146,638,14405,64,63,55,639,3181,30404,3195,6855,17823,93693,177518,85,350547],"class_list":["post-880460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-adam-simpson","tag-afl","tag-alastair-clarkson","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-coach","tag-john-longmire","tag-kangaroos","tag-north-melbourne","tag-sacked","tag-sacking","tag-sonja-hood","tag-sports","tag-todd-viney"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=880460"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/880460\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/880461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=880460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=880460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=880460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}