Richmond caretaker coach Jade Rawlings will create history this coming weekend when he becomes the first man to coach against his brother in an AFL match for 60 years.

Rawlings, who has been in charge of the Tigers for the past four matches since the axing of Terry Wallace, will come up against his younger brother Brady when the Tigers take on North Melbourne at the MCG on Sunday.

The Roos are also in the hands of a caretaker coach in Darren Crocker and Sunday's clash will also be only the fourth time in the past 20 years that two caretaker coaches have gone head-to-head in an AFL match.

But it is the prospect of a coach coming up against his brother that makes Sunday's game far more noteworthy than would normally a game pitting together the teams in 13th and 14th position at this time of the season.

The elder Rawlings, at 31, is the youngest AFL coach since Mick Malthouse began his coaching career at Footscray in 1984 aged just 30 but he is three years older than Brady, who has played 194 games and is a dual best and fairest winner at Arden Street.

According to AFL records there have been eight known cases of a coach coming up against his brother with the last being back in 1949 when Hawthorn's Alec Albiston, who was playing coach of the Hawks from 1947-49, played and coached against his brother Ken, who played 48 games for Richmond between 1946-51.

The first such instance occurred in 1910 when Essendon's Alan Belcher coached against his brother Vic, who then later coached against his brother at Essendon in 1914-15 when Alan was only a player.

Then in 1920 South Melbourne captain-coach Arthur Hiskins was in charge against his brother Rupe at Carlton while in 1927 Footscray playing coach Paddy Scanlan came up against brother Joe, who was playing for South Melbourne.

Two of the game's biggest names also came up against their brother in a coaching capacity with Collingwood legend Syd Coventry coming up against brother Gordon, who held the AFL's goalkicking record before Tony Lockett, when Syd was non-playing coach of the Bulldogs in 1935-37.

And in 1945 Essendon legend Dick Reynolds came up against brother Tom at St Kilda during the early years of his 22-year reign as first playing and then non-playing coach of the Bombers. As for caretaker coaches, Sunday's clash between Rawlings and North Melbourne's Darren Crocker - who has suffered three narrow losses since taking over at Arden Street following the shock resignation of Dean Laidley - is actually the second time in three seasons two caretaker coaches have come up against each other in an AFL game.

The other was in Round 22, 2007 when Melbourne's Mark Riley defeated Carlton's Brett Ratten at the MCG in a result which enabled the Blues to get a priority pick in that year's draft - helping them to select Matthew Kreuzer at pick one - while the Demons missed out on a priority draft selection in the 2008 national draft as a result of that victory which cost them the chance to select both Jack Watts and Nick Naitanui.

While the Blues lost that match, Ratten was appointed full-time coach for the following season and remains in charge while Riley was overlooked for the Demons job in favour of Dean Bailey and now ironically is an assistant coach to Ratten at Visy Park.

The only other recent instances of caretaker coaches coming up against each other was in 1996 when Footscray's Terry Wallace defeated Fitzroy's Alan McConnell in what would be the Royboys' last season in the competition while in 1989 Brisbane's Paul Feltham defeated Carlton's Alex Jesaulenko in the last round of that season.

And just to add to the strange machinations that will take place at the MCG on Sunday, acting Richmond coach Rawlings finished his 148-game playing career at North Melbourne before joining the Tigers while Kangaroos' caretaker coach Crocker was part of the Tigers' coaching panel for five years before returning to his original club North Melbourne at the end of 2004.