We heard in that press conference for Dean's Laidley's resignation that you would be taking over in the interim. How did it unfold privately?
Dean had said that he wasn't coming in on the Monday or Tuesday because he had to prepare a presentation to the board on the Thursday. He obviously used that Monday for a little bit of thinking time.

On the Tuesday morning, we were basically out on the training track and (chief of football) Donald McDonald, towards the end of training, called me over to the fence. There was a little bit of rumour going around but nothing was concrete. Donald said, 'Listen, Dean's resigned and you're now the new caretaker coach. He's going to be here in 10 minutes to address the players so wind up training'. That's basically how it occurred, as quickly and as swiftly and as crisply as that.

What did Dean have to say to you?
I said to him afterwards, 'Gee, you've just turned my world upside down' and he basically just said, 'Mate, it's a great ride, it's a great thrill so just enjoy it as much as you can'.

You've said it was a shock, but did you sense pressure on Dean or pressure he was feeling himself in those last few weeks?
I think that clause in those coaches' contracts where they want to find out by a certain round definitely puts a little bit of pressure on, especially when the win-loss ratio isn't where you'd like it to be. Then with the club obviously doing their due diligence to review the senior coaching position because of that clause, you probably then have to really have a good look at yourself as a senior coach and see where you're at and where you can take the group. I think that's what Dean did and he made that decision. It was handled extremely well – by Dean and the club.

You put out four very strong messages in your first week. Let's start with the first one, that is, that you'd like to take the senior job. What encouraged that?
I'd seen quite a few people get opportunities to become senior coaches over the last two to three years: Alastair Clarkson, a friend of mine, who's been given an opportunity at Hawthorn and has done extremely well. You look at Matty Knights, who was a player at Richmond when I was an assistant coach there and has moved into senior coaching ranks. Dean Bailey was another one. I started thinking to myself a couple of years ago, 'I have done a reasonable apprenticeship and I think I'm reasonably well-equipped to coach senior football if ever the opportunity presented itself'. And the fact that those guys have come in and have handled themselves as well as what they have, I thought there was no reason why I couldn't do the same.

What did you learn coaching in your own right at Port Melbourne?
The biggest thing for me is managing the different individuals, knowing what makes one person tick compared to another person. Not everyone's the same. You have disciplines put in place and standards that you expect everyone to abide by, but how you get different players up and how different players go about it within those standards can be very different. The key as a senior coach is being able to get to know his players intimately enough to know what makes them tick.

What about under Danny Frawley in your time at Richmond?
Danny was a coach who I really felt got the players playing for him. That was his biggest strength. He tried to create an environment where the guys were right behind him every step of the way. I probably also learnt at Richmond that when things aren't going well, how quickly a place can fall apart – as much as people are trying to hold it together. That's not just from coaching staff, but from a bigger picture; how much boards, past players and sometimes external influences can really influence how a place can fall apart.

What about lessons under Dean?
Dean's a very astute coach. His ability to read a game, to see what's happening in a game, is a real strength. Being able to sit alongside or behind him and see how he operates on match day has taught me a lot. As a coach coming in, you'd definitely want to have people management right but at the same time, you'd need to have a reasonable knowledge of how the game's played and how a game unfolds. Working with Dean has definitely let me do that.

Let's say Dean had stayed. Given your aspirations to have a senior job somewhere, would you have had a dip at another club – with Richmond being the obvious example?
No, I wouldn't have. I'm contracted here for this year and next year and I would have always looked to fulfil my contract here before I did anything else.

Talk of Nathan Buckley being in North's sights has dominated the media. What's your outlook on that?
He's obviously got a fair bit of appeal to him with the elite player that he was, the elite preparer and the way he went about things. He would be a real positive for any organisation to get hold of. What he would bring to this football club, I don't know, and whether it's the right ingredient for this football club, I can't really answer that question.

Are you worried at all by it, whether it's just Nathan or the other contenders who are going to say, 'Gee, I'd like to coach North too'?
I'm not worried about it. At the end of the day, I can just do what I can do and do my best. The support I've had from the people around here, the staff, has been fantastic, so I know they're helping me every step of the way. Hopefully we can continue on the path to improving. That's all I can really concern myself with at this stage.

What has been the message from James and Eugene in the last couple of weeks?
They've been really supportive. They've both said, 'Back yourself in and be yourself'. James came down to speak with the staff the Wednesday after Dean's resignation and gave some clear guidelines from the club's perspective and board's perspective. That's given us a pretty good line to take right throughout the whole footy club in regards to the direction we want to go in.

Getting back to those four messages you communicated in your first press conference, you said you wanted to make the club a more enjoyable place. What was missing?
This isn't a shot at anyone, but as I mentioned in that press conference, when you've stood on the shoulders of giants, you can see further. You can see how a place is unfolding over a period of time and I just felt that, again with the support of the staff, we can make some changes here that could make an immediate impact.

Enjoyment is about improving the morale, and I felt the morale wasn't as high as it needed to be. As a coaching panel, we've really worked hard to try to improve the morale around the place by having the days a little bit shorter – cutting a little bit of that extra stuff out that perhaps isn't important to us over the next 10 weeks. It may actually be important to us again pre-season but we've had to prioritise what's going to help us over the next 10 weeks.

That was going to be about training, getting in, doing the work and enjoying it, because if people are looking forward to coming into an organisation, they're going to put their head down and work hard.

Why had morale fallen away?
Morale falls away when obviously results aren't going your way, and form's up and down for individuals. A new coach coming in is just going to breathe a breath of fresh air into the joint. It wasn't anything we were doing drastically wrong.

You have a terrific rapport with all the players, particularly the young guys. What do you put that down to?
The early days coaching Port Melbourne, I identified quickly that relationships, people skills and interpersonal skills are pretty important in this caper. If there is one of my main strengths, that's it – I can build relationships and can empathise with people and where they're at, at different stages of their careers.

The third key thing you spoke about was getting the team to play a more attacking brand of footy. Was the type of footy you were playing for most of the first 12 rounds ineffective or too negating?
I don't think we've changed a hell of a lot. We're just encouraging players to take a few more risks. There are a couple of changes that we've made which I think will allow us to be freed up a little bit more and play a little more attacking. In saying that, there were a couple of areas we need to work on defensively from last weekend.

So would you say the type of footy you were playing in those first 12 weeks was really limited by who you had available?
Injuries have cruelled us, but I think the boys had got to a stage where they weren't pulling the trigger as much as they could have been. We've really tried to encourage that they take on the game a little bit more and when it's there, just pull it. If you make a mistake, we'll move on very quickly.

The last key message that stood out for me was when you spoke about players essentially starting with clean sheets. How much of that was directed at Corey Jones, Daniel Harris and maybe even Shannon Watt?
A bit of that was directed at them because when a new coach comes in, it's the only way it can be. You want to give everyone the same feeling of excitement and expectation around their own individual performance and where their careers are at.

There was no ceiling on what we believe the young blokes can do, and there are definitely no lines through any older guys with where they're at with their careers. Everyone starts afresh.

Whether it's selection, game plan or whatever, what more can we expect between now and the end of the season?
I'd like to think that we'll continue to build on the way we're playing. Players will be selected basically on their actions over time and their behaviour off the field and how they're going about things. Something we've talked about is every day you come into the place, you want to walk out as a better footballer.

Young kids will get a game if they're displaying those actions and really working hard off the field but in saying that, anyone is a chance to play at this footy club over the next nine weeks.

Did the club enter 2009 with this youth policy? Finals were obviously another goal, but were they a secondary one?
As coaching panel, you always pick a team that you think is going to give you the best winning chance but at the same time, you've always got one eye on the future as well. You're looking closely at the guys who you think can come in from a young perspective and have an impact on games, or by getting games into those guys you know are going to have an impact down the track.

Injuries have probably fast-tracked some of those decisions. I would have thought that with the amount of guys that we've tipped over in the last three years – I think we've changed our list by about 29 players – it was only going to be a natural evolution that we'd be bringing young kids into the team.

Would Adam Simpson win your B&F if it was awarded now?
It would be pretty tight. Simmo's played some decent footy but there are a few other guys who have had pretty solid years as well.

Hamish (McIntosh)?
Hamish has been pretty consistent. Josh Gibson, after a slow first couple of games, has been consistent. Brady (Rawlings) hardly ever plays a bad game or gets beaten.

Who then has been the biggest revelation of the season?
I should take this hat off a little bit, but having been the defensive coach for years before I was put in the senior position, I reckon Scott Thompson's had a terrific year. He has grown in stature, he's really come on and has done some really big jobs for us.

Back to Simmo, should he play on next year?
That will be a decision that will be made at the end of the year. Simmo said earlier on that he's got enough people around him who will give him enough honest feedback to let him know where his career's at and what decision he can then make.

How did Drew (Petrie) perform as captain during Boomer's injury?
He performed really well. He's really stepped up. He's so consistent with his ability to push himself and push himself for his team. Sometimes that's not reflected in the performance but you know Drewy's never going to die wondering because of how hard he works.

Is the list here underrated?
We're building a pretty good list of young players. We've got a reasonable mixture of core players as well. There's pretty exciting times for the footy club going forward; the new development, 30,000 members two years in a row now and I really think the club's heading in the right direction when building for the future.

Knowing the new facility is coming, given that you've played here and you've coached here, is it time for a change?
It is. Part of the vision we gave the players was to continue to create a high-performance culture around the footy club. But some things shouldn't leave the soil and that's the unique culture of the footy club. It's nice to be moving into a new facility and being able to catch up to some of the facilities the other clubs have got, but we need to maintain that we're custodians of the culture of the footy club.

How important is it to retain North Melbourne fabric?
I did speak with the players about getting a bit of a swagger back into the place that was definitely there throughout the '70s and I know it was there throughout the '90s. We need to start to build that back into the place. We've been renowned for being a team that's always been very hard to beat. Win or lose, teams have had to pull out all stops to get over us. Those two things are really important.

Wayne Carey is still a friend of yours. Should he have a football role at this club as part of all this change that will come between now and February?
That's a question more for Wayne, whether he'd want to go down that path. He's obviously got things really heading in the right direction for himself, but whether football's on his horizon or agenda, I'm not too sure.

Let's just grab one big hypothetical to finish. Say Wayne is keen to be involved in footy, is keen to return to North Melbourne in an official capacity and you're the man to lead this club beyond this year. Will Wayne Carey have a job at this club?
If he was keen to come back and I was the senior coach going forward, I would entertain that he might come in and fulfil a role. But to what extent that would be, whether it was just as a specialist coach or part of our new elite training facility with the learning and cultural centre, he might want to have a role to play there. He's definitely got something to offer the footy club, any footy club. That's not out of question, but we'll cross that bridge when we get to it.