David Noble was at home last November on his Queensland property, situated halfway between Brisbane and the Gold Coast, when his phone rang. It was the Saturday before the Melbourne Cup, just two weeks since Brisbane had lost its preliminary final to Geelong, and the Lions' football boss saw Paul Roos' number flash on his screen. 

"Oh, that's interesting," Noble thought to himself. 

The Sydney premiership coach, calling from Hawaii, was acting on behalf of North Melbourne in its search for a senior coach to replace Rhyce Shaw, who departed the club after dealing with personal issues last year. The conversation that followed between Noble and Roos set up the next chapter in Noble's long and sustained football story. 

"We had a chat for about 20 minutes on the phone in regards to what he felt was going to be a really detailed process that North was going to go through. That resonated with me," Noble told AFL.com.au. 

"He suggested I have a good think about it for 24 hours and he'd get back in contact the next day, which he did. I spoke to Sarah, my wife, and we had a long chat around what that might look like going forward and all of the things that come with coaching and he rang back the next day and again felt like there was a skillset North was looking for that I had some elements of. And he felt if I hadn't lost the passion to coach that I should consider it."

Noble had all but given up on being a senior coach. He hadn't been a hands-on coach since being an assistant at Adelaide between 2005-10, before moving into the list manager and then head of football roles. He then joined Brisbane in 2016 as football boss, helping steer the club rapidly from the doldrums to last season's preliminary finals. A CEO position awaited him at clubland. 

But Roos planted the seed and Noble warmed to the change of tack. Now, the 53-year-old is in the hot seat, with the rebuilding Kangaroos in his control. He already had links to the club before his decision to join: he'd worked with head of player personnel Scott Clayton at the Western Bulldogs two decades ago, knew list manager Glenn Luff from his time at Champion Data dealing with clubs, and had tried to poach new assistant John Blakey while at Adelaide several years ago. 

North's off-season of upheaval included Shaw's departure and 11 delistings, with Noble watching the club nosedive to second-last on the ladder. "It looked a little bit lost to me. That was probably how I saw the club at that point in time," he said.

He contacted Shaw soon after taking on the North role, with Shaw since joining Gold Coast's coaching group. "I reached out to Rhyce just after I got the gig. I haven't spoken to him one on one. I thought I'd just let a little bit of water get under the bridge, but it's great to see him stay in our game and secure that role at Gold Coast. To see him stay within the caper has been great," he said.

Noble has both long-term and immediate plans for North. He wants his side to be more attacking, but to pressure the ball more too. He wants to see his team play with speed and excitement and try things, not afraid of making mistakes. He wants to see his team enjoy playing together, even if the wins don't come. 

The club chose to move on star forward Ben Brown last year before Noble arrived and he's confident the Roos have enough options in the forward line to kick goals, with Nick Larkey and Cam Zurhaar key parts of the plan, even if he's keen to see Zurhaar in the midfield a couple of times every quarter.

The Roos will toy with playing a second ruckman alongside Todd Goldstein to offer some forward support too, while Noble is pleased with the development of Tarryn Thomas, Jack Mahony and Curtis Taylor as younger forward options. Recruit Jaidyn Stephenson is another who has Noble excited by his talent and goalscoring ability, while Noble is keen for his midfielders to spend more time in the forward line and be legitimate goalkickers when there. 

North hit last year's draft class hard, bringing in five picks, including first-round pair Will Phillips (No.3) and Tom Powell (No.13), and Noble said he will give the youngsters every chance to play early in the season.

"There needs to be an element that they've earned and worked for those games. We've got really good numbers on the track and you can already feel the tension of internal competition. We've started to have a look at how that first round [team] might look like and I think we had 30 or 32 names on the board," he said.

"I'm not vested on a particular team, a more mature team. I think we just need to look at our best team and if that includes a couple of our first-round draft picks or picks from this year then so be it."

Phillips and Powell are doubtless integral parts of North's long-term strategy though, which will see the club hit the draft again heavily at the end of this year and next. 

Noble, who plans to coach from the interchange bench like Brisbane compatriot Chris Fagan, knows he will be intrinsically linked to the Lions' turnaround, with the Lions jumping from wooden-spooners in 2017 to a home preliminary final and premiership threat within three years. All eyes will be on if the Roos can repeat Brisbane's rise, with chairman Ben Buckley wanting North to be competing for the top four within two to three years. 

But Noble said North isn't shying away from grand plans. 

"We need to find our own story. That's the first thing I'd say. Brisbane did a really good job, and everyone knows their story, but we need to find our own pathway and we need to create our own story as to what that actually looks like. I'm not sure that our pathway will be exactly the same," he said.

"I know the philosophy of what we worked on at Brisbane when I was there, there's a lot of elements I became aware of and I learned from and instilled some of those into where we are. But we're bringing our own pieces to the table and we want to create our own pathway. 

"Is it reachable? I think the goal of setting something like that makes common sense…I don't mind our club aspiring to improving where our position has been for the last few years. I have no problems with that at all.

"It's not something I'm frightened about or I'm concerned about. We've talked to our players that we want to play finals. When that is I'm not quite sure, we've got a lot of work to do to be able to get to that point, but we certainly want our players to aspire to playing finals. Then, as you know, when you're playing finals, who knows."