{"id":943422,"date":"2026-10-28T02:18:28","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T02:18:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/943422\/"},"modified":"2026-10-28T02:18:28","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T02:18:28","slug":"collingwood-made-a-late-play-for-craig-starcevich-here-is-why-he-turned-them-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/943422\/","title":{"rendered":"Collingwood made a late play for Craig Starcevich. Here is why he turned them down"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Hannah<\/p>\n

October 28, 2026 \u2014 12:30pm<\/p>\n

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Dual AFLW premiership coach Craig Starcevich has rebuffed interest from Collingwood, led by former premiership-winning teammate and CEO Craig Kelly, to help the struggling Magpies.<\/p>\n

The 59-year-old has extended his record as the AFLW\u2019s longest-serving coach at one club by committing to a new three-year deal with the Brisbane Lions, telling his players on Wednesday morning alongside CEO Sam Graham.<\/p>\n

\"LionsLions coach Craig Starcevich has signed a three-year contract extension. Getty Images<\/p>\n

Fledgling club Tasmania had also been interested in signing him.<\/p>\n

With the Magpies, St Kilda, and Essendon all seeking new senior coaches \u2013 each club having registered just one win each in disastrous seasons \u2013 and Tasmania in the wings to join the competition, Starcevich said the Lions were \u201cthe most powerful club\u201d in the men\u2019s and women\u2019s leagues because of their strong one-club culture.<\/p>\n

Starcevich, speaking to this masthead, said the Lions\u2019 workplace culture, staff and academy players were major drawcards in keeping him at Brighton Homes Arena.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll be very biased here and just say that the Brisbane Lions is the most powerful club in the AFL at the moment,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\"SamSam Wright recently stepped down as Collingwood\u2019s senior AFLW coach. AFL Photos<\/p>\n

\u201cWe run strong programs in both [men\u2019s and women\u2019s]. So it\u2019s just a great place to be in terms of our sport and our industry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Starcevich confirmed he\u2019d received a call from Collingwood to gauge his interest in returning to Victoria to rebuild the Magpies\u2019 AFLW program.<\/p>\n

In addition to their poor results this season, Collingwood have also recently lost captain Ruby Schleicher<\/a> amid calls to change their struggling AFLW program, with several senior players voicing concerns about a lack of improvement and direction.<\/p>\n

Related Article\"Ken<\/a><\/p>\n

Starcevich said the call from Collingwood came \u201cquite late\u201d and that he had already committed to re-signing with the Lions.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s something I couldn\u2019t really give too much consideration to at all,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But Starcevich did consider Tasmania, who are currently seeking their inaugural AFLW coach for 2028.<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom 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.<\/p>\n

\"Farewell:Farewell: Former St Kilda AFLW coach Nick Dal Santo.Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cSo that\u2019s that\u2019s essentially where it landed.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

St Kilda recently announced an independent investigation into their AFLW program following their poor season and resignation of long-time coach Nick Dal Santo.\u00a0 <\/a><\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Sam Wright announced he would step down as Collingwood\u2019s senior AFLW coach<\/a>, as the club grapples with a potential exodus of senior players.<\/p>\n

When asked the major factor behind the Lions\u2019 AFLW success, Starcevich highlighted the \u201cone-club mentality\u201d and support from the club\u2019s leadership.<\/p>\n

He and Danielle Smith, the club\u2019s general manager of AFLW, have 15 minutes with the Lions\u2019 board every month for a catch-up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have this sense of gratitude that we\u2019ve always had that group of people in our corner driving our program and supportive of our program \u2026 we were the first club to purpose build a facility to house both female and men\u2019s programs,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe proof in the pudding is that you can co-exist and to the benefit of each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Starcevich said the men\u2019s and women\u2019s program had crossover across gym sessions and often mingled in the corridor together, bouncing ideas off each other.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou walk through the front door, and they\u2019re all Brisbane Lions people. They\u2019re not just Brisbane Lions AFL men\u2019s or AFLW, it\u2019s one big Brisbane Lions footy club.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI would say in the five years that we\u2019ve been out at Springfield, that\u2019s the last thing on our minds now.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"BrisbaneBrisbane during their victory over St Kilda last week.Getty Images<\/p>\n

The season has been a challenging year for the Lions who are set to miss finals for the first time since 2019.<\/p>\n

Starcevich pointed to an extensive injury list for the reason behind the Lions\u2019 poor performance, with hamstring issues for stalwart Ally Anderson, wrist problems for Jade Ellenger and Courtney Hodder\u2019s unavailability this year due to pregnancy.<\/p>\n

But the senior coach is adamant if the season was three to six games longer, the Lions would be \u201ccoming home pretty strongly\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the men\u2019s 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\u2019t, and that\u2019s just life.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said his team had \u201cfire in the belly\u201d for next year and was excited to see a strong batch of Lions Academy crew coming through.<\/p>\n

Starcevich joked there was sometimes \u201csouthern state snobbery in football\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one expects any northern state club to be setting the pace. So that\u2019s that\u2019s given us great satisfaction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Keep up to date with the best AFL coverage in the country. Sign up for the Real Footy newsletter<\/a>. <\/p>\n

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Close\"HannahHannah Kennelly<\/a> is an award-winning sports reporter and Formula 1 writer at The Age.Connect via email<\/a>.From our partners<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"October 28, 2026 \u2014 12:30pm Save You have reached your maximum number of saved items. Remove items from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":943423,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-943422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943422","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=943422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/943422\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/943423"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=943422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=943422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=943422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}