THE great Leigh Matthews was tired. He had coached the club for 10 years and, while he had delivered the holy grail, the team had flatlined over the past few years.

One by one, the premiership heroes were shuffling off into retirement — some paying a physical price for the warrior culture Matthews had instilled. Only a small core of battered stalwarts remained.

Matthews no longer exercised as much authority. His methods were more apt to be questioned, even by his players. He was contracted for another year, but this was irrelevant, as he knew.

The club had known that a decade was a long time to coach any club, no matter the achievements. So it devised a succession plan.

Only one candidate came to mind. Only one was interviewed. He had stood on the dais with Matthews and raised the premiership cup aloft. He was a man who had universal respect.

He was tough and, like Leigh, a leader of men. He would play injured and never flinched in a contest. He embodied what the club was all about. He had integrity.

It did not bother the club that he had not served a proper apprenticeship. Or that he would be coaching teammates. Or that it did not know if he could really coach.

But Tony Shaw failed.

Voss's appointment has remarkable parallels with that of the coach who succeeded Matthews at Collingwood, right down to the presence of Leigh's long-serving lieutenant, Graeme Allan, who outlived Lethal that time, too.

The most striking similarity between Voss and Shaw was the inevitability and speed of the succession, the fact that the club did not bother to thoroughly investigate all its options. "The funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage table," said Hamlet of his mother's wedding immediately after his dad's passing. The Lions might have used the same tea bags for the Voss coronation and the Matthews abdication — a span of 27 hours is surely a record.

To be fair, the differences between the first and second Matthews successions also must be acknowledged.

Voss inherits a stronger list — which isn't saying much — and a more cohesive club than the factional rabble that was Collingwood, circa 1995.

And whereas Shaw was a candidate only for the Collingwood job (he had been offered an assistant's job at Carlton), Voss was offered the Carlton senior job, the Gold Coast position and arguably would have been given the Essendon coaching position, had he chosen to pursue it.

That powerful Victorian clubs were willing to punt on Voss 12 months ago insulates the Lions from the criticism for hiring an L-plate coach.

Ideally, Voss would have taken over at the end of 2009 or 2010, after working under John Worsfold and observing another club at close quarters.

Matthews' resignation meant each party was forced to take the plunge prematurely. The Lions had only one chance to grab Voss; he had just this one opportunity to coach them. The planets might never align again — ask Kevin Sheedy and Richmond.

Brisbane's willingness to appoint an inexperienced coach is more defensible, actually, than a Victorian club's, given the unique challenges that the northern frontier teams face in non-football states.

In Queensland, the public knows little of many AFL figures. Voss is one of few the punters could identify in a line-up of past and present Lions (Akermanis probably the other). To many, his is still the name they associate with the club, and he has the advantage of being local.

West Coast had flirted with appointing Neil Craig back in 2001 before opting for Worsfold. There was a sense that the barricades would have been stormed had the premiership captain not been given his birthright.

More dramatically, Paul Roos was appointed after an unforseen display of people power sunk the plan to give Terry Wallace the Sydney job.

With that in mind, one can envisage that the Gabba would have been burning if a triple premiership captain, newsreader and genuine local, had been passed over for a more credentialled, experienced man. The Lions, then, had no choice. Voss was a Shaw thing.