In sport and in life, it pays to learn from the best.

That saying looks to ring true for North Melbourne as it bolsters its football department, adding former Melbourne General Manager of Football Operations, Daniel McPherson, to its ranks.

A key figure in Melbourne’s surge to the premiership, McPherson joins the club in the newly created General Manager of Football Performance role, teaming up with Brady Rawlings as the club’s General Manager of Football Talent.

His appointment from the reigning premiers follows the club’s trend of recruiting from successful teams, previously adding David Noble fresh off overseeing Brisbane’s successful rebuild, and Rawlings after his key involvement in West Coast’s 2018 premiership triumph.

While the players don’t return for pre-season training until November, McPherson says he’s keen to get going in his new role.

“I’d love to get some time with all the players and staff to get a sense of where everyone’s at and put some things in place to get us moving forward really quickly,” he said.

“I’ll essentially be responsible for football performance. I’ll be working really closely with ‘Nobes’ and the coaching group, the high-performance and medical crew, and the off-field and welfare stuff.

“Brady will take control of the list management and recruiting side of things. We’ll be working very closely together, but we’ll have clear responsibilities.”

In leading the performance aspect of the football department, part of McPherson’s role will include working with North’s new-look medical and sports science team.

With Kevin White coming in as the club’s new head of performance, North’s medical staff is also in the midst of change.

Having worked with fitness guru Darren Burgess at the Demons, McPherson says he’s keen to implement a high-performance mindset at the Kangaroos as quickly as possible.

“One of his [Burgess] main philosophies is if you can train, train … there’s often times if it’s one way or the other, players will elect not to train and take the easy way out,” McPherson said.

“‘Burgo’ is really strong on unless there’s something seriously wrong with you, you get out and you train.

“He’s also really big on every time you train, you train with purpose and intensity.

“That’s something we can implement at North Melbourne really quickly.”

While driving training and performance standards are an integral part to the improvement of any list, the cultural aspect cannot be neglected.

With his experience of Melbourne’s climb up the ladder in recent years, McPherson had not just a front row seat to their eventual triumph, but a key role in implementing important changes at the club.

He says it’s important for players to drive themselves as they look to move forward.

“Clearly at Melbourne there’s a highly talented list … the biggest thing that’s changed in the last couple of years has been the cultural buy in from everyone,” McPherson added.

“The players got together 12-18 months ago and thought they’d had enough of being around the mark or just missing finals.

“They made a really strong commitment to each other to dig in, drive standards and hold each other accountable to what they do and how they prepare themselves, and that transferred really strongly on-field.”