A famous coach once said, "All coaching is, is taking a player where he can't take himself."

Those words ring true for North Melbourne director of coaching, Darren Crocker, who has been both a player and coach in the biggest sport in Australia; AFL.

However, Crocker, a premiership player with North Melbourne in 1996, knows like players, coaches too need to be trained and up-skilled.

“Developing better coaches is the only way to help develop better players," he told North Media.

"If we develop better players, we’ll have a larger pool of players that will potentially come through to the AFL.

“It’s really important to spend time developing coaches at the tier below AFL.”

This philosophy brought five of North’s top coaches to Hobart to lead a Tasmanian State League (TSL) Coaching Forum ahead of the Round 9 clash against the Sydney Swans.

“Myself, Rhyce Shaw, Leigh Tudor, Jarred Moore, and Scott Gowans spent the evening helping with professional development for coaches and assistant coaches in the TSL,” Crocker explained.

“We touched on high performance coaching and how we educate players. We also showed them some vision and discussed the ways in which we captured training and then how we feed it back to the players to learn different concepts.”

The forum especially important In Australia’s southernmost state.

“Helping develop coaches is always important, but in particular in Tasmania, where we’re trying to make sure we’re really engaging in the state and connecting with the people down there,” Crocker said.

“We have to make sure we’re putting a good amount back into grassroots footy.”

With the likes of Tarryn Thomas having been through North’s Next Generation Academy (NGA) pathway, the benefit is clear for all to see.

 “It’s especially important with our NGAs down in Tassie,” Crocker stated.

“The better coaching that we can develop down there, the better coaching that they’re going to be able to give the kids, and hopefully the better players that we will be able to get on the way through.”