ESSENDON game performance manager Mark Neeld has confirmed he won't ever consider another tilt at a senior coaching gig.
Neeld endured a rocky ride as coach of Melbourne when he joined the Demons for the 2012 season; he was sacked midway through the following year with a 5-28 win-loss record.
The former Geelong and Richmond player then walked away from the AFL scene in 2014, joining TAC Cup club Eastern Ranges as talent manager, before stepping back into AFL clubland under former Dons coach James Hird as head of player development.
Dons will blossom after struggles, says Neeld
Now in his second season at the club, Neeld is enjoying a wide-ranging new role under first-year Bombers coach John Worsfold.
Worsfold, the 2006 West Coast premiership coach, created Neeld's new position at Essendon after benefiting from a similar role during his time at the Eagles.
The role sees Neeld working across all areas of the football department - he helps plan what to focus on at training in the short-term as well as developing a long-term vision of how the Bombers want to play. Neeld also spends a lot of time with the sports science department making sure coaches are interpreting the data in the correct way.
Neeld told ESPN the position suited his strengths, and stated he would not be interested in ever considering a senior coaching position in the future.
"No," he said definitively when asked if the fire still burned within him to become a senior coach again.
"I'm really enjoying my role for a whole heap of reasons - one is, it's a new role here, and with that, there's a lot of learning for me and the club as to how it works.
"Part of the role is making sure the footy department operates as one - footy clubs and footy departments in particular have evolved so quickly, so this is a horizontal role to make sure everyone's connected.
"My goal is to make a huge success of this role - that's my absolute priority and I'm very much enjoying it."
Neeld -- who said the step up from being an assistant to a senior coach was "enormous, absolutely enormous" -- said he had never worked closely with Worsfold, but said the ex-Eagle had implemented a heavy emphasis on education.
"I hadn't worked with him before and [now] I see him every day, which means you get a different perspective," Neeld said. "[He is] really clear, very concise with how he wants things done - [he is] very much a visionary person with how the game should be played and how players and coaches should conduct themselves."
Worsfold's intense workload was also a key focus for Neeld and the club's experienced assistant coaching panel.
"There's a few of us [former senior coaches] here - 'Bluey' [Guy] McKenna, Mark Harvey, Matthew Egan," Neeld said. "Having sat in that chair, part of this role is to prevent things that don't need to get to John from getting to him: the requests on his time from sponsors, the board, the leadership group, particularly this year - it's significant and enormously time-consuming, so I'm able to shield him from some of that, which I do enjoy.
"[We need] to ensure John [sticks to] the core of being a senior coach and develop relationships with the 43 players - plus the 12 [suspended players] that we hope come back - and part of having an experienced broad coaching group is to make sure he can do that."