TOM Couch says his entire support staff deserve substantial credit for the position the club finds itself in.
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“I always said that I might disadvantage the club coming in the first half of the year not knowing the compeition, not knowing any of the players, game style,” the Victorian-born former AFL player said.
“The assistant coaches have been great to me, a great base of support, trying to educate me and get me up to speed.”
A majority of the Northern Bombers coaching staff led by senior assistant Adrian Smith are a close-knit group, who have coached and played together for many years.
“His technical knowledge of the other sides and other players is remarkable – he knows every player in the competition,” Couch said.
“He’s like a Wikipedia of the competition and that’s been great for someone that’s come in and knew nothing, started from zero.”
Premiership player and former senior coach Chris Whitford, father of skipper Taylor, has been around the Invermay-based club for more than three decades and said the current playing group is the best he’s seen in that time.
The results speak for themselves,” Whitford, who is in charge of North’s star-studded midfield core, said.
“They’re only boys still out there. Our leadership group’s still 23, 24-year-olds but they’ve grown up so much and run the show.”
Bench boss Anthony Loone said all the coaches know each other’s strengths and weaknesses, which relayed confidence onto the playing group.
“The relationships we share are paramount. We’re all comfortable enough to challenge each other, but at the same time we totally respect one another and have fun together,” he said.
“To set that example has been crucial to us because the players see how we do that and it creates a good culture.”
Paul Holmes has been responsible for overhauling the defence of last year’s runners-up following high player turnover and injuries.
Jay Foon has been the one consistent component down back but Holmes said the transition has been seamless.
“The best thing about it was that we have fairly basic rules to abide by and a lot of the training initially was to do with defensive work,” he said.
“Then all we had to do was to get the guys that were already there to help coach the new blokes.”