Brendan McCartney

Brendan McCartney (born 23 October 1960) is the former senior coach of the Western Bulldogs football club in the Australian Football League (AFL). He coached 66 games in 3 seasons before he resigned from the job. He has served as the development and strategy coach of the Melbourne Football Club since 2015.

In his playing days, Brendan McCartney played in the Geelong Football League for the Newtown & Chilwell Football Club. He is one of the few AFL coaches who never played at the highest level. His father, Graeme McCartney, played one senior game with Richmond in 1957.

After persistent injury curtailed his local playing career and premature retirement at 27, he first began coaching Newtown & Chilwell's reserves. Soon after, McCartney was appointed the head coach of the Ocean Grove Football Club. He guided the football club to four consecutive Bellarine Football League premierships from 1994 until 1997. In 1998, he took a role with AFL club Richmond as assistant and development coach.

From 2000 to 2010, McCartney was an assistant coach with Geelong Football Club, before moving to be the forward line coach at Essendon in 2011. In 2010, McCartney was voted the AFL's assistant coach of the year by the AFL Coaches' Association.

Shortly after the conclusion of the 2011 AFL season, McCartney was appointed as the new senior coach of the Western Bulldogs under a three-year contract, replacing the outgoing Rodney Eade and in doing so edging out favourite and former Bulldog Leon Cameron as well as a "high quality field". He took the Western Bulldogs for their training session for the first time on 7 November 2011.

McCartney came under heavy criticism after the Bulldogs lost to expansion team Gold Coast in Round 8, but the team had a better second half to the season, which included promising performances against top 8 teams Essendon, Hawthorn and Sydney, as well as wins against Carlton, West Coast and Adelaide. As a result of the encouraging performances in the second half, McCartney received a two year contract extension on 26 November 2013 and he was to be contracted to the end of the 2016 season.

Following speculation after the 2014 AFL season, which concluded with the Bulldogs losing to Greater Western Sydney in the final match of the regular season, McCartney resigned as head coach on 10 October 2014. When captain Ryan Griffen announced he wanted to leave the club the day before McCartney's resignation, it was reported that McCartney's relationship with Griffen caused him to want to leave the club.

McCartney joined the Melbourne coaching staff as a development and strategy coach under Paul Roos from the 2015 season.