TALE OF A NEW COACH

QWhat has the transition from Aaron Fearne to Mike Kelly (right) been like?

AThere was a bit of uncertainty in my mind because I was thinking that I needed to be the one carrying over the culture and that stuff from last season to this. I knew I could not put that pressure on myself but I did carry it through the year a little bit. I felt like it was on me to help steer the thing. We just could not get any momentum through the year. We hit the losing streak and maybe the first win in Round 1 was a poisoned chalice. If we lose that game, we are hungry as hell for every home game after that and we did not have any false view of how we are going. It has been a frustrating year. But, I am looking at it from a bigger picture and I am hoping to see little improvements along the way. I have had four brand new coaches in my pro career and I know it takes years for them to get to how they want to coach and their team looks like they want it to do. Mike was really open and said he wanted to play a lot of pre-season to get his mistakes out. Mike has learnt a lot this year and it is about setting benchmarks about what he wants. From my experiences, that usually takes coaches years to get to there. You have to be prepared to go the long haul as a club if you want to get to where you want to be. Mike will get there. I believe in the evolution of him as a coach, he has the people skills. He is learning the discipline side of things, which is the polar opposite of Fearney.

QWhat was it like to run out with your kids at your final game?

AIt was great to be with the kids out there. They were in tears after the game, I went to go say hi and they were gone, they were crying, maybe they were just overwhelmed with emotion. It was cool to see, great to share with my wife Michelle.