As he prepares to coach Carlton for the first time in an official AFL match, against Richmond at the MCG on Thursday night, Malthouse admitted he was grumpy as usual on game eve.
"I don't know (whether) Wednesday before a Thursday game is excitement… It's been a very exciting time but they're seeing the bear with the sore head today," he said after his side's final 45-minute hit-out at Visy Park on Wednesday morning.
"I'm not good the day before a match."
After his 12-year stint at Collingwood ended in 2011, Malthouse spent a year working in the media, a period in which he missed the feeling of competition and anticipation.
"It's an intangible – you don't know you miss it until it's gone," he said.
"It's not there all the time because your emotions are varied … When you reflect and go, 'OK, have I covered everything?' That's when you start to get it.
"It's not that you're doubting yourself, it's whether you've covered everything …
"That adrenaline rush when you think of the consequences of, have you got the side prepared, who do you play, the occasion, what's it mean.
"Do you crave it? You'd be crazy to crave it all the time because you'd not only go grey, you'd probably end up like (assistant coach) Robby Wiley with none. So you've got to get a balance."
The three-time premiership coach couldn't recall how nervous he was before his first game as coach of Footscray in 1984, quipping: "I reckon the Romans had just walked out of Jerusalem at that stage."
Malthouse typically played down the focus on himself.
"You can't let that individual feel to override anything that's got to do with the team," he insisted. "It's certainly not about me, it's about the team.
"That's the last thing I will accept here. 'Hey, it's your first game.' Yep, we all knew that back in October. So let's get over that very quickly. It's the team's first game of the year."
Malthouse said he would continue to follow his tried-and-true philosophy of focusing on "the process of winning" rather than simply the result.
He said he had not tinkered with any aspects of the game plan since his side's loss in the NAB Cup Grand Final and insisted the Blues were "ready to go".
He regards the Tigers a "very good football side" and "the better side outside the eight" last year.
