Harvey, who has built an impressive AFL coaching resume which includes spending the past five years at the helm of Fremantle, agreed to join the Lions’ coaching staff on Thursday.
“It’s really pleasing to get Harvs on board,” Voss said.
“We’ve been trying to look around for what we need people-wise, searching far and wide before finding Harvs.”
“Our focus has certainly always been on getting the best people available, because if there’s one thing I’ve learnt over the last three years, it’s the importance of having good people surrounding you.”
Voss clarified that Harvey would be filling a Senior Assistant coaching position with a focus on the team’s ball movement and forward line.
“He’s going to be one of our Senior Assistants, along with Adrian Fletcher and Garry O’Donnell,” Voss said.
“It won’t be anything similar to the proposed Neil Craig role, which was more of a managerial role as opposed to an assistant coaching role.”
“He’ll be looking after a lot of our ball movement and our forward line, so it will be great for a guy like Browny to be able to bounce ideas off someone with Harvs’ experience. It will benefit some of our younger brigade coming through as well.”
Harvey brings with him valuable Senior Coaching experience with the Dockers which Voss said would prove a significant advantage for both his team and himself.
“He’s had a certain level of experience and exposure to the top job, so his support will be pretty important. There’s no doubt he’ll be a good sounding board for me,” Voss said.
“There are a lot of attributes that we know we’re going to get some benefits from, and he will add enormous value in the coaching box for us in terms of game-day strategy.”
“He also has a big focus on development - he sees that as a crucial part of coaching - which fits our needs beautifully.”
From his meetings with Harvey earlier this week, Voss said there was no doubting that he was still determined to continue coaching at AFL level.
“He’s very enthusiastic. Obviously he had to work out where he was at, and whether that passion and drive was still there for him, and clearly it was after we got to meet him.”
“We spent a good day together and you could clearly tell from that conversation we had with him that he hadn’t lost any of that passion. He hardly stopped talking about football,” Voss said.
“He had clearly done the homework and had the fire in his eyes to keep going.”
While the Lions will begin their pre-season preparations for the 2012 season next Monday 7 November, Harvey won't officially commence his role for another few weeks.
