“In terms of hours, I’d be too frightened to work out how many work hours I’ve done in my first [few] months, but again, there are no complaints.”

Adapting to the role as senior coach

“In chatting with [former Collingwood coach] Mick Malthouse after the grand final - we had a cup of coffee - and talked about a few things. He talked about the life of an assistant coach was to be an ideas’ person. He said an assistant coach walked into a coach’s office and give him ideas and then walk out.”

“The life of a senior coach is that all of those people who are coming into my office - coaches, football staff, staff of the footy club and board members - they’re still throwing all of the ideas, but they turn around and walk out, but I’m still sitting in the chair.

“I’ve got to deal with all of those ideas and deal with those decisions, so there’s a lot of that in it. But it’s great and there is no way I’m going to pull out the calendar and work out how many hours.”

The coaching structure

“It’s based on some educational research into how sports people learn best and how they learn quickest and how they get in a performance mindset.”

“My years at Collingwood, I had the opportunity to travel for altitude training and also to visit sporting clubs in the US and UK.

“It has been advantageous and it’s come about through personal experience and some research into how sports people learn.

“I also had some visits to NFL club Arizona Cardinals, the Phoenix Suns in the NBA and a lot of research into the way Man U and Chelsea set up their development academies. So it’s based along those lines.

“There is a fair bit of research and time and effort, which has gone into it.

“It’s certainly not something I woke up with one Sunday morning and thought ‘this is what I’ll do’. There is a fair bit of work that’s gone into it.”