WHEN Port Adelaide's coaching staff arrived at the opening of the AFL's newest stadium - the first with a roof - at the converted docks of west Melbourne for the season-opener in 2000 they learned their workspace in the stands was an afterthought.

The architects and engineers who designed the stadium "before its time" had forgotten the elevated coaches boxes. But they did build elaborate dug outs at ground level - and were seemingly perceptive in telling coaches to get back to ground level. They foresaw a trend two decades before its time.

Today, with Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley having constructed a five-game winning streak since leaving the box for the bench, there are more AFL coaches at ground level than at any other time in the national league era that began in 1987.

There is Hinkley, along with the most-successful coach of this century in Alastair Clarkson at North Melbourne, Fremantle mentor Justin Longmuir and the man with the Midas touch at Collingwood in Craig McRae. Sydney premiership coach John Longmire has mixed and matched with his workday office. Going against the traffic of coaches returning to ground level is Brisbane mentor Chris Fagan.

Former Hawthorn coach Peter Schwab emphasises the "powerful" difference in communicating with players by eye contact - rather than through the ears with a phone connected by 200 metres of cable from the interchange bench to the box in the grandstand.

"It is much more immediate - and direct from the bench," says Schwab. "The capacity for players to hear the message from the most important off-field person is powerful. There can be no doubt as to what is being said - and, for the coach, what is being heard.

"Players need correct information to assist performance - they need to know what they must do or what they should keep doing.

"I find it interesting that one game with pages and pages of tactical notes in the playbook - American football - has always had NFL coaches on the sidelines, close to their players."

Of this significant advantage, Hinkley says: "(By speaking face-to-face with the players) there is some genuine connection and that is strong for us. We have a new, younger, emerging midfield that we need to have calm. And even with experienced guys such as Travis Boak, it helps them to have clarity quite quickly. You do get a different feel at ground level. (Against St Kilda) I felt there was stuff you could have missed by being upstairs."

Former Port Adelaide senior assistant coach and former St Kilda senior coach Alan Richardson found "I had a greater impact from a coaching perspective than I thought I would" when at ground level.

Fagan had the same impression when he took charge of a new, younger Brisbane unit saying: "You get a good feel for the game from ground level - and you can communicate immediately and directly with the players."

Yet perception has many believe senior coaches are more capable to change the flow of a match if they are seeing the game from an elevated perch.

Perception certainly is not always reality in assessing and valuing this growing trend of coaches returning to the bench.

When Hinkley "abandoned" the seat in the grandstands after the loss in Showdown LIII, the theme pedalled by some pundits (if not some fans) was the tactical wheel was now in the hands of midfield coach Josh Carr - a supposed "succession plan" in preview is the perception read outside the club.

Port Adelaide forwards coach Chad Cornes would contradict any suggestion Hinkley has taken a back seat in the tactical plays by moving away from the elevated seat he has filled since starting his senior coaching career at Alberton in 2013.

"Kenny is coaching at an extremely high level," says Cornes.

Never is it suggested McRae - who has been on the bench since he took charge of Collingwood last season - is not in control of the whiteboard. And considering Collingwood's phenomenal record (14 wins after being behind at three quarter-time) no-one is saying McRae is not pulling the levers while he stands on the boundary during those dramatic last-term rushes to victory.

"Unaware and uneducated," Hinkley says of the commentary about coaches who have left the confines of the elevated box preferring face-to-face coaching with their players at ground level.

Coaching certainly has changed while the positioning of the senior coach has turned full circle from the rise to elevated perches started in the VFL during the 1970s by Ron Barassi and in the SANFL by the late Neil Kerley barking orders with walkie-talkie in his infamous glass chamber on top of the interchange bench at Thebarton Oval.

So much is done between Monday and Friday - in an era of full-time training - to prepare the players with a gameplan and understanding of the opposition. Players are therefore more tactically alert on the field where team runners carrying orders from the coach are now limited in their access to the park.

So many more people are part of the match-day staff, including as many as 25 in each of the two the elevated coaches' boxes at any AFL game - assistant coaches, opposition analysts, statisticians, computer technology specialists, football department chief.

And the game is in the hands of more than a senior coach.

Here too there is contradictory commentary of the modern coach. If the senior coach does not listen nor engage his assistants - "my way or the highway" - he is considered stubborn, dictatorial and inevitably paranoid. If he concedes decision-making power to his assistants, he is labelled as weak.

Richmond premiership coach Damien Hardwick had no qualm empowering - and praising - his midfield coach (now Greater Western Sydney senior coach Adam Kingsley) for adjusting the playbook in the lead-up to his club's successful run to the 2020 flag.

At Brisbane, the tactical work of assistant coach Danny Daly is rarely noted in public commentary.

"People try to identify one person - the head coach usually - as the only part of that conversation (of how a team sets up and changes tactics on match day)," says Hinkley. "It has never been that way whether I am up in the box or down on the ground. 

"We work as a team. And my (coaching) team is really strong. We use all our coaches to make the team better."

Results - five consecutive wins - would suggest Port Adelaide is better for Hinkley opting to be in the eyes rather than ears of his players with his move to the interchange bench. Also in clear vision to all is the strong and powerful connection between coach and players - a non-negotiable need that has existed no matter where a coach chooses to sit on match day.

ON REVIEW: For the past two AFL games at Adelaide Oval, the home teams have scored a combined 19.36 (7.16 by the Adelaide Crows in Round 7 and the 12.20 from Port Adelaide against Essendon on Sunday). Both games were decided by less than a goal ...

Home is not always sweet, at least on the scoreboard.

The 37.5 per cent conversion at Adelaide Oval on Sunday is not on the top-10 nor top-20 list for Port Adelaide games in AFL action, however.

In 114 AFL matches at Adelaide Oval, starting from the season-closer against Melbourne in 2011, Port Adelaide has recorded 1464 goals and 1321 behinds (52.56 per cent accuracy).

In 213 AFL games at Football Park from 1997-2013, Port Adelaide scored 2679.2424 (52.49 per cent). West Lakes remains the scene of Port Adelaide's worst conversion in AFL company - 4.17 (19 per cent) against Sydney in the club's inaugural national league season in 1997; and second worst with 3.12 against Richmond in 2010.

The most lopsided conversion by Port Adelaide at Adelaide Oval has been, year by year - 

7.18 and 7.16 in the first season (2014) of the remodelled Oval against Essendon and Sydney in matches that ended in losses, 

5.13 (at a paltry 27.7 per cent) in 2015 in defeat to Richmond, 

11.20 in the first Showdown of 2016,

13.20 for a win against Hawthorn midway through 2017,

10.12 against Richmond in 2018 when Port Adelaide had more behinds than goals in just three of 12 matches,

9.14 in the first Showdown of 2019 - and in 2020 against Hawthorn,

12.15 in the first Showdown of 2021,

and 7.14 last season in the tribute match to Russell Ebert against Hawthorn and 4.12 (at 25 per cent) against Melbourne.

Since the start of 2020, Port Adelaide has in 39 matches at Adelaide Oval scored more goals than behinds 17 times.