Brendan McCartney says his departure from Melbourne will allow the club’s “brilliant” array of assistant coaches to grow.
McCartney and the Demons agreed to part ways at season’s end following his demotion from backline coach to a development role mid-season.
The former Western Bulldogs coach said he started losing the drive and motivation that came with preparing the team both during the weekend and on game day.
“Probably even at the end of last year, even though we had a great finish to the year in 2018, I just felt myself losing a love of the element to the week,” McCartney told This Is Your Sporting Life - For Tobin Brothers Funerals, celebrating lives.
“This year, I stepped forward and said to the coaches in a bit of mid-season review that it was time to step back. Melbourne has got some brilliant young coaches there; Justin Plapp, Troy Chaplin, Max Rooke, Matt Egan, Ben Matthews … and Goody (Simon Goodwin) himself is a fantastic young coach.
“So for me, it was time to let them take on more responsibility and I felt sometimes they would look for approval or want to know what I thought rather than say what they thought.
“It was a good chat with Goody, Josh Mahoney and I. It was time for them to get some new blood in and for me to probably work on some things that I felt passionate about for two or three years now.”
McCartney spent five years at Melbourne in a variety of roles.