The longest-serving captain in Coburg Football Club history will hang up his boots at the end of the club’s 2015 Peter Jackson VFL campaign.
Nick Carnell has led the Lions for seven of his 10 years at the club, establishing a reputation as one of the most respected and uncompromising leaders in the competition.
The 28-year-old has played 167 matches but recently started to find it difficult to balance the increasingly professional demands of playing in the VFL with his career outside football as a construction manager.
“It’s something I’ve been dealing with the last couple of months,” Carnell said.
“The VFL’s moving at such a speed now where the demands on your time and your body are so great that it’s very difficult to sustain.
“I think it’s the right time – I feel the club’s in a position now where it can quite easily stand on its own two feet from a leadership point-of-view with a lot of the guys we’ve got around.
“We’ve got a really good culture and a really good group of guys who can take the club forward now.”
However, Carnell’s leadership ability doesn’t look like being lost to the game.
In his 13 matches for the Lions this season, the four-time club leading goalkicker has acted as an on-field coach for the forward line group and said coaching was a role he was thinking about exploring in the future.
“It’s something I’ve really enjoyed,” Carnell said of his role this season.
“We’ve found it really useful from a team perspective, as I’ve got a really good handle on where things are at on the ground and I know what the guys want up in the coaching box.
“I’m going to take some time to miss footy a little bit – get away from it for a touch – but there’ll be some sort of footy involved next year.
“Coaching is something that’s in my future, but the time commitment you need to spend on coaching is just as much as playing, so that’s where the difficulty lies.”
Carnell requires a shoulder reconstruction once the season is over and said after taking some time off to refresh his body, he wouldn’t be going too far from the club both he and his wife love to be part of.
But he would, however, miss some of the day-to-day things associated with being a player.
“(I’ll miss) the showers – having a shower after training or a game and talking to the boys in there, and the change room banter,” Carnell said.
“My old man still drives me to every game; he picks me up in the morning and it’s just a good opportunity to catch up with him.
“That’s a little thing I probably take for granted at the moment, but I know I’ll miss that interaction.”
Read the extended feature article this weekend in the AFL Victoria Record.
CLICK HERE to listen to Carnell on SEN on Wednesday night.
Last Modified on 20/08/2015 00:03
