North Melbourne interim coach Leigh Adams finished the last of his six-game stint with a heavy loss before handing over to Alastair Clarkson, but loved the opportunity at the top level.
Adams – who has now been a senior coach at local, VFL and AFL level – is keen to remain at the club he played for, but his future now lies in the hands of Clarkson.
"Up until three hours ago, I loved it. No, I really have enjoyed the experience, I can't thank the club enough for the opportunity they've given me to lead the club. I've loved being able to help try and get this footy club going in the right direction," he said.
"Has it done much? Hopefully it's done a little bit, but I've got such a passion for this footy club, I've spent 15 years here and basically grown up here, and I love it and want us to get back to finals as quick as possible.
"I'm not sure (about his timeframe). We'll exit our players Monday and Tuesday this week, and then from there, it's basically up to 'Clarko' what he's thinking in terms of what he wants to do with his staff.
"We'd hope (to know) sooner rather than later, we'd love to sit down and have a conversation with him so our coaches can get some clarity on where they're at, because it's a really uncertain time for staff at our footy club.
"If he wants input from me (on the list), I'm more than happy to, and we'll sit down and have a conversation about what my role looks like going forward. If he thinks it's with the footy club, I'd love it to be with the footy club."
Adams dodged a question about whether the club needs a priority pick, putting that discussion firmly on the shoulders of Clarkson, but spoke about the areas of improvement needed for the wooden spooners.
"The three big things for me are our fundamentals – our ability to kick, mark and handball, ground ball, that stuff needs to go to a new level if we want to be a good football club," Adams said.
"From there, our ability to transition both ways, we're probably not fit enough at the moment, and that probably comes a little bit to the demographic of our list, we've got a really young list that haven't had a lot of pre-seasons under their belt.
"And then our transition to defend when the ball is live, when the ball is slowed down we get into good positions – you see guys like Ben McKay come off and intercept the ball – but transition and your live defence are linked together."
