VFL / AFL coaching legend Allan Jeans died this week at the age of 77.
Jeans was known as one of the league’s toughest coaches and a brilliant motivator. He had been suffering from fibrosis of the lungs and had been, for a long time, in palliative care in a Lynbrook nursing home .
After a modest 77-game playing career with the St Kilda Football Club, 1955 to 1959, Allan ‘Yabby’ Jeans became coach of the club in 1961 and led the Saints to their only premiership in that famous grand final against the Magpies in 1966.
After 16 years at St Kilda he went on to coach Hawthorn from 1981, appearing in seven successive grand finals between 1983 and 1989 for three premierships in 1983, 1986 and 1989. When Jeans suffered a brain haemorrhage in 1988, Alan Joyce stepped in to guide the Hawks to another flag that year.
Allan Jeans also had a short tenure of one year as coach of the Richmond Tigers in 1992 and was eventually inducted into the AFL Hall of Fame in 1996.
