Mark Riley (Australian rules coach)

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Mark Riley is an Australian rules football coach, who acted briefly as the caretaker coach of the Melbourne Football Club in 2007.[1]

As a player Riley played for Claremont in the in the WAFL, at junior levels, but never played league football after badly injuring his knee. He then played Sunday league football as well as cricket, including being selected for a state squad. As a teacher, he then moved to small rural towns including Hyden, Narrogin and Kellerberrin. At Kellerberrin he coach Gerard Neesham and built up a friendship that would later see Riley take over from Neesham as coach of Claremont when Neesham was appointed coach of the newly formed Fremantle Football Club in mid 1994. Riley would lead Claremont to the to the 1994 WAFL Grand Final, but they lost to East Fremantle. [2]

He then joined Fremantle on its entry into the AFL in 1995 and was the club's development coach from 1995-97 and assistant coach from 1998-2000. 2001 and 2002 saw him return to Claremont as senior coach where he was awarded the JJ Leonard Western Australian Football Coach of the Year award in 2002 before he joined Neale Daniher, who was also an assistant coach at Fremantle under Neesham, at Melbourne in 2003 as an assistant coach. When Daniher resigned in the middle of the 2007 season, Riley was appointed the caretaker coach of Melbourne for the remainder of the 2007 season from Round 14 onwards. Melbourne won three of the nine games he coached to finish 14th, but Riley was not retained for the 2008 season, being replaced by Dean Bailey. He is now assistant coach of Carlton.

Riley has also been on the coaching staff of the renowed Clontarf Football Academy at Clontarf Aboriginal College in Western Australia.