Collingwood's stirring win over St Kilda this weekend told you everything you needed to know about why Mick Malthouse has survived so long in the cut-throat world of AFL coaching.
Malthouse might have his critics - those that point out his lack of premierships won in relation to the number of games and years he has coached, and the fact that it is now 14 years since he last tasted premiership success.
Then there is his seemingly permanently gruff demeanour which does not endear him to all. He has also been criticised for being slow to adapt to the modern-day trend of teams handballing at all costs.
But one area where Malthouse still reigns supreme is his ability to motivate his players and inspire them when their 'backs are against the wall'.
Malthouse just loves it when the world is seemingly against his club as he pointed out in the build-up to Saturday night's courageous win when he said 'no-one wants to see Collingwood succeed except Collingwood people'.
It was the same tactic he used regularly during his 10 years in charge of West Coast, when the Perth club was viewed as an 'outsider' in the AFL competition yet made the finals in every year of the 1990s under Malthouse's reign and won two premierships.
While he has not achieved that level of success at Collingwood, he has steered the club into two grand finals (2002 and 2003) and came within a kick of upsetting eventual premier Geelong in last year's preliminary final. The win over the Saints has the Pies poised to reach their third successive finals series and fifth from his nine years in charge.
In fact, St Kilda now looks the only team in the eight under threat after a round in which Sydney, North Melbourne, Adelaide and Collingwood all consolidated their finals claims while Brisbane, Richmond and Essendon were exposed as not being good enough to make the eight.
That leaves just the disappointing Saints and the much-improved Carlton to fight it out for eighth spot, although the out-of-form Lions still have a chance.
While Malthouse didn't give much away on Saturday night, the win over the Saints must have been one of the most satisfying of his 25-year coaching career.
He had endured one of the toughest weeks of his career and was left feeling betrayed not just by star players Heath Shaw and Alan Didak going out boozing last Sunday night but then lying about Didak's presence in Shaw's car after Shaw had been caught over the legal limit and crashed into two parked cars.
The league's longest-serving coach has a reputation of backing his players to the hilt - which has always made him extremely popular amongst the players wherever he has coached despite his public image - yet this time had no option but to agree to standing down two of his most important players for the rest of the season at the time when the Pies could least afford to lose them.
Accordingly the Pies were all but written off, not just against the Saints but for the rest of the season. But those that did so forgot about Malthouse's legendary motivation skills.
In the absence of Shaw and Didak, not to mention Rhyce Shaw (also suspended for his role in last Sunday night's events) and injured key forwards Anthony Rocca and Sean Rusling, Malthouse turned to a combination of youth and experience to revive his team.
He implored his leadership group to lift and captain Scott Burns, vice-captain Josh Fraser (in what Malthouse described as his best game for 12 months), Tarkyn Lockyer, Scott Pendlebury and lion-hearted defender Nick Maxwell certainly did that, playing as if their lives depended on it.
But Malthouse again showed there is no coach better at getting young players to quickly adapt to the AFL and the faith he showed in young forwards John Anthony, playing just his seventh game, and Chris Dawes, who was making his debut, to lead the attack was repaid in spades as the pair combined for five goals and outshone St Kilda's far more experienced pair of Nick Riewoldt and Justin Koschitzke.
It all added up to yet another Malthouse-inspired win against the odds and now Malthouse's challenge is to get some consistency into his team - which has beaten Geelong this year, yet lost to Carlton twice - and make the most of a dream run home (two away matches against bottom-four teams and a home game against Sydney), which should be enough to not only secure the 16th finals appearance of Malthouse's coaching career but possibly even a top-four spot.