JOSH MAHONEY INTERVIEW (thanks to Alpha 33)

Josh Mahoney, one of the new breed of Melbournefc assistant coaches under Dean Bailey was heard this week on SEN's MORNING GLORY programme. After introducing Josh and reeling off his career achievements at the many clubs with which he played, the Morning Glory team asked Josh about the appointment of David Neitz as captain for a ninth season and about the makeup of the club's leadership group for 2008.

Tim Watson: The guys that went out of the leadership Brad Green and Jeff White, what was the reason behind that?

Josh Mahoney: It's just a weight of numbers thing. When it's a voting system and guys are giving 5,4,3,2,1 you've got have a cut off somewhere and in the end seven was a big enough group as a leadership. Those guys are still considered to be great leaders of the club. They just couldn't quite get in.

Tim Watson: Andy Maher believes its bunkum this whole idea of a big leadership group like this and I'm not putting words into his mouth...

Andrew Maher: … I like the word "bunkum" …

Tim Watson: How much time did the coaching staff spend debating the merits of what style of leadership group you eventually arrived at?

Josh Mahoney: At the end of the day we decided that we wanted to get leading players to come on board as part of our leadership team and that was just part of the programme. It's the players who vote for the leadership group and they eventually came out with the number to be involved. If it had come out to be that there were three clear leaders at the club and they were the only guys who got votes then that would have been the leadership group. It came out that there was a good spread of leaders at the club and that’s how we came up with the number of seven.

Andrew Maher: Josh, you've recently stepped out of playing ranks. Do you think the leadership group notion of having six or seven or eight or nine or ten as is the case at some clubs, blokes sharing the load. Do you think it actually works?

Josh Mahoney: I've come out of a system at Port Adelaide where it worked exceptionally well and I think with the amount of responsibility now that's placed on players it's good to share the load among guys to go to different functions and being able to take on different responsibilities. It's a bit too much now to just have one captain and two vice captains. They can take on different roles but it’s good to spread the load as much as you can.

Bill Brownless: And what's your role down there Josh?

Josh Mahoney: I'm in charge of the forward line down at Melbourne where we’ve got a good group of young guys and experienced heads so it's a nice little mix.

Bill Brownless: What are we going to do. Are we going to see some change up there? Maybe moving Neita. Get him out of the goal square and put someone else there?

Josh Mahoney: I think that's the way that footy's going. You can't just plonk blokes in the goal square any more but Neita's raring to go and fighting fit at the moment so I'm sure he'd want to be pushing up the ground a lot more this year.

Andrew Maher: You're coming from outside. Who's surprised you? What players have caught your eye this early in the season?

Josh Mahoney: I think the main thing is that there is a group of young guys that I probably didn't know a lot about who got a little bit of chance to play last year – Col Garland, James Frawley and Simon Buckley as well – they're probably the young blokes at the moment who are real standouts. Overall though it's just the work ethic of players like Brock McLean, Nathan Jones and Brad Miller – their work ethic is as good as I've seen.

Bill Brownless: How's Aaron Davey going?

Josh Mahoney: Yeah, Aaron had a bit of an interrupted start to the pre season but now he's pretty much into full training and the more and more videos and tapes I watch of these players I'm getting more and more excited about coaching them.

Bill Brownless: You'd like to see him going through the middle a bit more, don't you Tim?

Tim Watson: Yeah, well if he's got the engine you'd play him more up the ground wouldn't you?

Josh Mahoney: Yes, I think it's good to have those pinch hit players would can go through the midfield to play a little burst of five minutes and we're definitely thinking of doing something like that this year.

Tim Watson: And Josh, what's the view of the Melbourne Football Club coaching crew about the NAB Cup change of rules with a maximum of 16 player interchanges per quarter?

Josh Mahoney: We're not really that fussed about it. We think it was something that was eventually going to evolve. Things were getting a little out of hand with the amount of interchanges that were happening with clubs and the AFL has spoken about it over the last two years that something was going to be done and this is the first little step to controlling it. It just means that you're probably going to have to manage to plan your interchanges a little bit better throughout the game. It'll be interesting to see with the numbers they've come up with how it goes especially with eight people on the interchange bench as well.

Tim Watson: And what about, are you going to be playing your stars in the NAB Cup?

Josh Mahoney: We're interested to see how everyone's going. We'll play the guys who are fit and raring to go. If blokes aren't ready to go we won't be rushing them in just to play. At this stage we'll be playing the guys who have done the majority of the pre season and are fit and ready to go.

Andrew Maher: How's Ricky Petterd going after his horrific injury Josh?

Josh Mahoney: Yeah, Rick's been on a modified programme as well for a little while. He's tracking along pretty well, he's joining in the sessions and probably doing about 75% of the sessions. The great thing is we've got very experienced guys in our fitness staff with Bohdan Babijczuk leading the guys. They do a great job and they're getting the guys fit and making sure they get the K's in their legs even if they're not in full training.

Andrew Maher: You guys have got the hands on the reins in a big year for the Melbourne footy club. A 150th year I know the club’s doing heaps of work to make the most of this significant milestone. There’s a nice fresh feel about the Melbourne Football Club this year and we're very excited about what you blokes can deliver. Thanks for joining us and we'll catch up during the year.

For more about the 2008 leadership group - see DEMONS' SEVEN MAGNIFICENT IN DIFFERENT WAYS

I'm getting more and more excited about coaching ...

Hope he feels that way in about three month's time!

thanks for that demonland!