"I can't imagine there's a better coach in Australia in the way he develops players and teaches them to play football," Hird said of Brendan McCartney. "I'm surprised someone like that hasn't had a chance at senior level, because in my time in footy I don't think I've met a better coach."

The coals of Mark Thompson's return to Windy Hill, which preceded McCartney following him up the highway from Geelong as a handy set of steak knives, have been raked cold. Messy as it was, the Bombers have no doubt that it was worth it. So, what makes McCartney so good?

"First and foremost, he genuinely cares about his players," says Tom Harley, who long before becoming a dual premiership captain was an unheralded member of a young Geelong back line under McCartney's tutelage. Harley recalls he, Matthew Scarlett, Brenton Sanderson and other defenders often dining with Brendan, Kirsty and their children at the McCartney home.

"When you want to influence someone from a coaching point of view, the relationship is where that comes from."

Harley's recollection of a man deeply interested in his players' lives beyond football — "your family life, how you're going with your girlfriend, your wife, work, study, whatever" — resonates with those who encountered McCartney at the start of this most unusual coaching career. As a teenager, Will McTaggart played in the last three of Ocean Grove's four Bellarine Peninsula league premierships in a row under McCartney in the 1990s, and remembers care married to blunt honesty garnering huge respect.

"He could tell you in a football sense exactly where you were at in one sentence, and ask how you were going personally in the next," McTaggart says. "He always finished with a positive."

McCartney's pathway sets his story apart. AFL football barely tolerates those who "haven't played the game at the highest level"; he has had to prove himself more than most. In 1990, when Thompson was halfway through his 13-year Essendon career, McCartney was enjoying his first season as a coach — of Newtown reserves in the Geelong Football League.

His GFL playing days had ended in his mid-20s, cruelled by what would now be diagnosed as osteitis pubis, but the then-Chanel College teacher had a hunger for educating footballers. Ocean Grove president Geoff Cunningham was reserves coach to McCartney when he joined the "Grubbers" in 1993, and remembers him immediately "sorting the sheep from the goats".

The qualities Cunningham recalls keep coming up with all who have encountered him. "He put a lot of one-on-one time into players. He was insistent on winning the contested situation in-close, the man-on-man. If you went against the gameplan he was hard as nails."

Harley says his black-and-white approach equates to fairness. "The most important part of any sort of teaching is the follow-up, and he would put hours and hours into you." He sees the McCartney philosophy as essentially old school: win your own contest, and never, ever give up. "If you're not willing to relish the contest, you won't survive too long under any regime that Macca's involved in."

Cunningham says McCartney took a playing group that "wasn't all that flash" to a grand final in his first season, then won four flags in a row when the committed did it his way and the slackers hit the highway. By now he had met Jeff Gieschen, now the AFL's umpires boss, but then an assistant at Geelong who enjoyed McCartney's lust for learning. They regularly met for coffee, and when Gieschen became Richmond coach a significant door opened.

"These were the days when clubs had a senior coach, an assistant coach and a development coach, that was it, so we had to make sure we were getting the right person," Gieschen says. "Ross Lyon got the assistant coach role, and Brendan the development [and reserves] coach."

He was immediately struck by McCartney's work ethic, first to arrive and last to leave despite the Ocean Grove commute. Greg Tivendale was just out of the under 18s, and remembers watching hours of tapes with McCartney, learning how teammates and opponents played, how to set up, where to go and how to get there. "He was a terrific bloke to have around at the start of my career," says Tivendale, now a rookie coach himself with his old club, Rythdale-Officer-Cardinia.

In two years at Punt Rd his reputation grew such that Thompson made McCartney part of his first coaching panel at Geelong in 2000. Harley tells a story from the early days, of him and Scarlett taking one of McCartney's extra sessions after training.

"One of us duffed a kick — it couldn't have been Scarlo — and Macca said, 'You boys had better get used to kicking the ball to each other, because you're going to be doing it for the next 10 years'. He had that real faith."

His record, Harley says, speaks for itself. "He worked with a very young defensive group at Geelong, and by the mid-part of that decade and obviously through the premiership years we had the runs on the board as the No. 1-ranked defence in the competition.

"He took over the midfield in our premiership years and blooded two Brownlow Medallists [Jimmy Bartel and Gary Ablett] and a really strong midfield that's the envy of a lot of the competition." Already, Harley sees a McCartney-Thompson stamp on Essendon in 2011.

McCartney had been earmarked for an academy chief role at the Cats even before Thompson's abrupt career shift, teaching and developing newcomers but moving away from a match-day role. The Bombers heard he wanted to keep a football department presence (it should not take a million guesses how), and Hird, who didn't know him, and football manager Paul Hamilton, who in his North Melbourne and Adelaide assistant coaching days had met him only fleetingly, didn't get through their interview before concluding he was everything they needed.

"We knew straight away that he had strong ideas about football and where it was going," says Hamilton, who thinks the mix of teacher, mentor and father figure married to his match-day work in the box have already been hugely influential. "He provides very clear solutions to any problems or opportunities that present."

Essendon's offensive game is his specific brief, with Hamilton citing Michael Hurley as one player with whom he has worked closely and produced tangible dividends. He is an important sounding board for Hird, with "some really good, holistic views" on the Bombers' program.

McCartney was contracted to the Cats for another three years, but breaking the deal hasn't greatly tarnished the good work of the previous 11 years. "He did a fantastic job with us, without any doubt," one official says, wishing McCartney the best and noting there was little point shackling someone who wanted to move on.

Maintaining match-day influence at Essendon also keeps alive the possibility of a coaching fairytale. McCartney went for the Port Adelaide job and the Power was deeply impressed before settling on Matthew Primus. But Harley and Gieschen aren't alone in their conviction that the 50-year-old would be a successful senior coach if given the chance.

"I'd love you to quote me on how good he is, [because] I couldn't speak more highly of the influence he's had," Hamilton says.

BRENDAN McCARTNEY — THE JOURNEY

Played 87 games for Newtown in Geelong Football League.

Coaching career:

1990 - Newtown reserves (GFL) P18 W6 L12 8th

1993 - Ocean Grove (BFL) P21 W13 L8 2nd

1994 - Ocean Grove (BFL) P20 W17 L3 1st

1995 - Ocean Grove (BFL) P18 W18 L0 1st

1996 - Ocean Grove (BFL) P20 W18 L2 1st

1997 - Ocean Grove (BFL) P21 W18 L3 1st

1998 - Richmond (AFL res) P22 W14 L8 4th

1999 - Richmond (AFL res) P21 W13 L8 6th

2000-10 - Geelong assistant coach

2011 - Essendon assistant coach