MASTER coach Leigh Matthews has given a stamp of approval to the career choice of his former captain Michael Voss.

Matthews, who identified two helpful hints when embarking on the road to becoming a senior coach, said Voss had completed the first by working in the media and was now moving on to the second by accepting an assistant-coaching role at West Coast.

“If I was a player and I’d just finished playing and wanted to coach ....there’s two basic things that are very helpful,” he said on Monday.

“One is actually watching a lot of footy.”

Matthews said working in the media rather than just attending the games as a fan meant you really had to focus on the game in order to comment on or write about it.

“That means you get to see a lot of different teams without an emotional involvement.

“That’s a really good thing, a really helpful way of re-establishing and reaffirming what you think about what works and what doesn’t,” he said.

The four-time premiership coach said the second thing that helped when it came to becoming an top-flight coach was involvement in the AFL system behind the scenes in the “coaching ranks.”

“I think everyone’s better qualified (if they have been an assistant coach),” Matthews said.

“Going to another team rather than the one you were involved in is good too.

“You get used to a certain way of doing it and then you see another way of doing things ... that’s why I would recommend a player to go behind the scenes of a club other than their own.”