On the surface, to be an assistant coach at an AFL club without having played a senior game would appear to be one of the most daunting tasks in football.

But the reality is vastly different, as Collingwood’s Midfield Development Coach Dale Tapping will tell you.

A hugely successful player and coach in the Victorian Amateur Football Association (VAFA) and later the TAC Cup, Tapping joined the Magpies last November and couldn’t be happier with his start to life at the elite level.

“Bucks (Nathan Buckley) rang me up on the Sunday after the Grand Final,” Tapping told collingwoodfc.com.au.

“I had a chat with Melbourne and Essendon as well as Collingwood, and the Collingwood job was the one I chose to go to. It was a pretty hectic couple of days.”

A horticulturalist by trade, Tapping worked as a landscape manager for eight years but was forced to balance his occupation with his part time coaching positions at Old Brighton, Old Scotch and the Western and Sandringham U18s.

He capped off his five-year spell in the TAC Cup as the coach of Sandringham’s under-18 premiership last September and is now charged with the responsibility of developing Collingwood’s youngsters.

“The settling in period’s been pretty good. It’s like any new job. I’m certainly starting to feel more comfortable around the place,” he said.

“Obviously walking into a big club with the other coaches, it’s a very elite, high profile coaching staff in terms of experiences so I’d be lying if I didn’t say that on occasions I’ve sat back and thought ‘What am I doing here?’ but I feel a lot more comfortable now. That will continue to evolve.

“I certainly feel a lot more comfortable.”

With such a rich experience in coaching the game’s junior stars, Tapping is perfectly placed to deal with the task of developing the club’s youngsters not only into good footballers but into good people, too.

“We’ve been charged with the six or seven players who we each look after, so I’ve got a group of players and we just make sure that their program’s ticking along,” Tapping explained.

“We’ve got goal setting, and I’ll go over their vision and cut edits of their training, one-on-one sessions, group sessions - just anything from their own development to a bit of welfare stuff.

“It’s really important at the moment to try and establish a good relationship with those boys, to get to know the product and build a rapport with them. They’ve been really good. They’re doing a lot of extra work on the floor and they’re a really good, keen group.

“Primarily, from a development perspective, it’s coaching those boys through and making sure that they’re getting well looked after and developed too and that they get that one-on-one and specialist coaching feedback. The support mechanisms are in place so we can do that.”

Tapping, who turns 47 this month, believes Collingwood’s expanded development coaching team will ensure that no player slips through the cracks in his time at the club.

“When you look at a lot of other teams, they’re spread pretty thin in terms of development. I think the attention to detail that our boys are getting is pretty good.”

The articulate and thoughtful father of two actually played for Collingwood at under-19 level in the early 1980s and found a spot on Melbourne’s senior list in 1988 but was unable to manage a senior game. He returned to Prahran where he was a premiership player, and later found himself playing for Old Xaverians in the VAFA where he played at representative level in 1993 and 1994.

One of Tapping’s strongest traits is his proven ability with younger footballers, and finds the development side of coaching to be highly motivating.

“Just working with the elite kids really appealed to me,” Tapping enthused.

“Just the attitude that’s typical of the TAC Cup kids - their willingness to learn and embrace footy at 17 or 18 is really at the front of their minds, so the attitude to learn is really strong. That was appealing and it became an easier attitude to coach.”

Tapping credits his relaxed approach as a key factor in helping him reach this stage of his career.

“First and foremost, I just really enjoy the game and what the game brings in both playing and coaching. I just enjoy the coaching aspect of it. I’ve never really had any grand plans to be anywhere at a particular time, it’s more about just enjoying what I’m doing. That’s really been my attitude towards coaching.

“Wherever it takes you it’ll take you. I’ve just found that to be a good way to go about it.”

The past three months have allowed Tapping to develop his relationships with the rest of the coaching staff, and has formed a particularly strong bond with senior midfield coach Robert Harvey, who he will work with closely this season.

“They’re great. ‘Bucks’ is very professional about what he does. He sets a really high standard and I wouldn’t expect anything less. I think everyone gets on really well and are prepared to toss up ideas and share knowledge. The boys have been pretty good.

“‘Harves’ has got his ideas because he’s the senior midfield coach and he puts a lot of his thoughts across. We did a presentation for the first and second year players the other week, which is good because we toss around some ideas for what we rolled out. He’s been really good.”

Tapping said his primary role as the Midfield Development Coach is to ensure that the messages all midfielders receive are consistent and that any gaps between the knowledge of VFL and AFL players are eradicated.

“A lot of the things that ‘Harves’ is endeavoring to roll out mean there needs to be a consistent theme throughout the whole group. For the guys that don’t play in the AFL team they’re going to play in the VFL so the midfielders are going to get that consistent message which is pretty important. You don’t want mixed messages from one group to the other.”

The players he is working closely with are all showing signs that they are ready to progress to the next stage of their careers. Tapping cited two players, Ben Sinclair and Jamie Elliott, as youngsters to have presented a strong case for senior inclusion in 2012.

“Jamie Elliott’s in his first year in and has shown really good signs. Ben’s been in for a couple of years and had a bit of a taste last year. He’s one of those guys we’re looking at to progress and take the next step.

“Tom Young’s had a really good pre-season, he’s just got to continue to improve certain areas of his game, the same as Benny Sinclair.

“Jackson Paine’s new to the club. I’ve had an involvement with him (at Sandringham) and physically he’s probably ready to go but he just needs to tighten up areas of his game.”

“I think the guys who’ve been brought into the club are doing really well.”

With only a week remaining until the club’s first set of NAB Cup matches, Tapping is gearing up for his first involvement in an AFL match.

He expects to share a role on the interchange bench with Development Manager Craig McRae.

Collingwood will take on the Western Bulldogs and Greater Western Sydney at Blacktown on February 18.