There have been plenty of opinions on whether North Melbourne made the right decision in moving on Alastair Clarkson. The truth is, from the outside, I’m not sure any of us can really know.

We can judge the win-loss column. We can look at list development and game style. We can judge behaviour outside the football club. But some of the most important measures of a coach happen behind closed doors: whether the players are responding, whether the football department is aligned and whether both believe in where the program is going.

Listening to president Dr Sonja Hood and football boss Todd Viney explain the decision, there was clearly a disconnect between Clarkson and significant parts of the football club. And there was one phrase that kept standing out to me. “The modern game”.

I don’t think the modern game just means tactics or how you move the ball. That has clearly changed, but everything surrounding football has changed too. Perhaps Clarkson’s departure represents the end of one particular type of coach: the old-school one whose authority comes partly from reputation and whose program requires everyone else to fall into line.

My mind casts back to Clarkson’s time at Hawthorn, where he famously didn’t allow his players to wear long-sleeved jumpers. When he left, Chad Wingard promptly ran out in long sleeves. It was only a jumper, but it felt symbolic. It looked like a clear “stuff you” to what could be considered an outdated idea of the “hardness” required of players. That old-school hardness seemed to follow Clarkson to North Melbourne.

Modern coaching is softer around the edges, and I don’t mean that as an insult. Modern players aren’t “soft”. The standards and expectations placed on AFL players are higher than they have ever been. What has softened is the way those standards are delivered.

There is more conversation. More understanding of life away from sport. More consideration of workload and wellbeing. More acceptance that there might be five different ways to get the best out of five different athletes rather than one way for everyone. Athletes now have a voice, and that can only be a good thing for coaches who are willing to listen.

I’ve been part of elite programs where coaches adapted after listening to player feedback and, in doing so, arguably extended their careers. I’ve also been part of programs where coaches were moved on because stubbornness got in the way of listening to what players needed and what reviews were telling them.

That coach-athlete relationship is so important. It doesn’t mean players should be happy all the time — I certainly wasn’t. There were plenty of times when the coach was right and I needed to show some resilience in how I received the message. But there is a difference between being challenged by an environment and no longer believing in it.

Players need to understand and fully buy-in to where a program is heading and, ultimately, want to be part of it. In football, that matters beyond the players already inside the four walls. You are trying to create a club players want to come to and, just as importantly, one they want to stay at.

Clarkson had four years at North Melbourne. That is enough time to implement a program, adapt where necessary and ask people to commit what you are trying to create.

If, after that time, there is still an overwhelming disconnect among the people inside the program, eventually the answer can’t simply be that everyone else needs to get on board. Even though an AFL legend is at the helm in this case, hard decisions still need to be made.

Perhaps that is where the opportunity now lies for the next generation of coaches. For a long time, clubs have been seduced by the aura of champion former players or the “proven coach”.

Past success, whether on the field or in the coaching box, should obviously be considered, but it can’t be the qualification that outweighs everything else when selecting a coach.

And this doesn’t necessarily mean young coaches replacing old ones. Experienced coaches can evolve too. But it does mean being willing to listen to assistants, high-performance staff, psychologists and, of course, the players themselves.

It means learning from people who came through sport in a completely different era rather than expecting them to adapt entirely to yours.

Clarkson can still be one of the greatest coaches we have seen while no longer being the right coach for this particular group, or even for this era of footy in general. Those things can all coexist. Maybe the old-school coach isn’t dead. But the old-school idea that reputation gives you licence to coach the way you always have probably is.

The modern game hasn’t become soft. Its edges have simply softened, and the coaches who survive it will be the ones willing to soften theirs too.