Matthew Egan was a Geelong draft hopeful when he featured in Inside Football in 2004, a Cats player earning a reputation in the VFL.

His coach at the time, Ron Watt, sensed a future key defender at league level.

Time zips along. Twelve years on, and after a  career in which he ascended to All Australian honours at Geelong but ultimately succumbed to a foot injury, Egan is a VFL coach, taking charge of Essendon.

Egan was also the Bombers’ AFL coach for a time last year, the caretaker after James Hird’s departure.  His three-round tenure ended with victory over Collingwood.

The experience, he told Inside Football, prompted him to raise his hand for the VFL position.

He said it had given him a sharp insight into how assistant coaches gave advice, but ultimately the head coach had to make the decision – quickly.

“Was a bit of a shock because I wasn’t thinking it was going to happen,’’ he said. “But it was great personal development. I guess as a line coach you’re never really sure if the head coach role is for you. I’m still pretty young and learning the ropes. I guess to get that sort of experience, I got a taste for it. That’s why I was keen to do the VFL. 

“I was ready for a change. I’d been a line coach for four years … being a VFL head coach, you run your own meetings and program. You’re still under a coach (John Worsfold) but I still get to run my own sessions and stuff like that. I knew that was an area I needed to develop, talking in front of the group and getting that hands-on experience and making the decisions. It’s been awesome so far.’’

If the VFL is about giving opportunities to aspiring AFL players, Egan is in the ever-thickening book of its success stories.

After giving up a promising tennis career, he played for Oak Park in 2002 and joined Geelong’s VFL team in 2003 at the encouragement of his friend James Kelly.

Finding it difficult to combine football with his full-time work as an electrician, he ditched his job.

“I started mowing lawns for a living, just to get some cash, but I trained a fair bit harder on my footy,’’ he recalled.

It paid: in 2004 he was in the league’s team of the year and the Cats drafted him.

In three years he played 59 games. In 2007 he was one of nine Cats in the All Australian team but a foot injury cost him a place in the premiership side. It also cost him his career; he never played again after Round 22 of 2007.

“Short and sharp,’’ is how he described his time as a pillar of the Geelong backline.

Egan assumed a role on Geelong’s VFL and then AFL coaching panels, and went to Essendon in 2012.

Four years later he replaces not one coach, but three: Hayden Skipworth, Paul Corrigan and Mark Corrigan all had charge of the VFL Bombers at times last year. 

No disruption was apparent.  The Dons made it to the preliminary final, beaten by only 12 points by eventual premier Williamstown in a match played at helter-skelter pace.  

The Corrigan brothers, development coaches this year, will assist Egan, as will Dan Jordan.

Of the Essendon team that played in the prelim, VFL trio Marcus Marigliani, Kyle Hardingham and Sam Tagliabue and AFL-listers Nick O’Brien, Elliott Kavanagh, Alex Browne and Lauchlan Dalgleish are no longer at the club.  On top of that, the AFL squad is depleted by the WADA ruling.

The result, Egan said, would be a greater reliance on the VFL list.

“We’ll be playing more VFL guys every week. Off the top off my head last year we played something like 12 on average each week. That will go up a fair bit.

“So there will be that opportunity for the VFL-listed players. We’ll be young, because we’ve lost so much experience. We’ll get games into guys who can potentially play AFL footy down the track. That’s a great thing.’’

Having performed the juggling act of football and work himself, Egan knows the demands required of VFL players.

“I actually spoke about that the first night I had them…don’t think I’m someone who doesn’t understand how hard it is,’’ he said.

“I did it, and I commuted to Geelong from Melbourne as well. Yeah, it does take hard work and you have to sacrifice a lot. They still need to earn a living and make careers for themselves. But you do have to train as hard as an AFL player to get to AFL level, otherwise you’re that step behind.’’

Essendon has retained the bulk of its 2015 VFL list – Dan Coghlan, Jacob Thompson, Aaron Heppell, Angus Milham, Josh Freezer, Jordan Schroder, Ben McNiece, Sam Heavyside, Dan Willis, Jack Langford, James Ferry, Isaac Muller, Jydon Neagle and Charles Lill – and recruited Nash Holmes from Gippsland Power and James El Moussalli from the Northern Knights.

The Bombers and their new coach start their season on Saturday, April 9, at Windy Hill, against Werribee.