Mark McVeigh knows Essendon’s actions in the coming months will far outweigh any of his words during a first off-season in the top job.

With that said, the incumbent Senior Coach set a clear tone in his first press conference on Tuesday. A reshaping of the team defence, a focus on galvanising the wider Club - and a new gameplan he expects the players to be ready for come November - sat right at the forefront of that.

Fronting a wide range of questions from a healthy spread of journalists after a months-long process, McVeigh offered insight into what Bomber fans can expect from their new man in the top job.

Spike on… his passion

My family are here today. My mum and dad walked me in here as a 17-year-old and walked me back today as a 45-year-old.

My beautiful girls, my fiancee are all here, my little boy Wilkie - a lot of hard work has gone in to get to this point.

I know what it means to walk through these doors. I know what it means to wear the jumper. I know what it means to represent a group of supporters that would give anything for their club. Like them, I will give anything for. And that's why I'm here.

I'm not coming back to live in the past or reflect on what was. I'm coming back to help build the next successful era for a club that - like it has for many others - shaped me as a person.

Spike on… the state of the list

It’s been a long period of time since the club has seen success, and I've watched that from afar. But I think in the last 3 to 4 years we're starting to see some real growth.

I think our players are starting to find their feet. You know, we have our VFL team at the moment challenging in the finals, which I absolutely love. So the challenge is significant, and that's part of the reason why I wanted to be a part of it, because it's where I want to be. 

Potential and talent alone won't take us to where we want to go. Our job as a football program is to create an environment where our people can thrive in the environment, build unrelenting standards, have a genuine connection and absolute clarity about where they want to play and how they want to play.

What we need to do really quickly is educate our younger players around development. We want to see our players come into a program where they are learning the game really quickly. We need to sit down with them, hey need to come in and feel safe in our environment and then we need to deliver on-field.

We're going to be a young team. We're going to be a young team even next year. So for us, we need to make sure that those players that hopefully come through the draft, that come into our footy club, the players that are here now continue to be educated, which I know Dean Solomon has done an amazing job in his tenure in the last 12 to 13 weeks.

I want to develop our players, but I also want to bring back the club where it needs to be.

Spike on… the state of Essendon

We have wonderful people in front of us. The club has embraced my family with smiles.

I know the position on the ladder doesn't suggest, you know, it should be the happiest place. But it's pretty amazing what they've got here. And that gives me great confidence. 

It should give our supporters great confidence. I know that what they want to see, we'll go to work really hard and what that looks like. We need to surround our players with the best staff we possibly can, and we'll go to work at that.

They need to be coached hard and coached well. I hope in the next few weeks and months that our supporters who perhaps aren't aligned with us right now see some great change.

Spike on… a demand for elite preparation

 I do want them to be brave. I do want them to play with flair, but we need to fix up our team defence.

I've coached team defence for a long period of time, so it'll be a system-based team defence. We'll have a role offence, but it'll change and look differently.

Our players will understand that they're going to enjoy their break, which absolutely they should. But they need to become back prepared physically and ready to learn because the system that we’ll put in place, you need to understand. Otherwise you'll get found out.

And when we get all three phases (defence, offence, contest) going in the right direction, Essendon will fly.

Spike on… a demand to compete

I don't like to talk about pain. I think today is about a new era. Our playing group should feel excited. There is a significant amount of pressure that comes with playing with Essendon, we know that.

We'll embrace that, we’ll embrace what comes at us. But what we need to understand is if our members and supporters are walking through the gates of the MCG or Marvel Stadium or traveling to Adelaide, they know we're going to compete.

And I reckon throughout the year, Dean Solomon got a group to compete, not for the whole time, but we've seen it and I reckon it's right there. We just need to tap into a little bit more. We'll create a new game plan, enhance our player development really quickly and connect as a club and a group.

Those foundations have already started to build throughout this year. And I think Dean has taken that and really driven that behind the scenes. It hasn't reflected on field. We know that. But inside the club it has.

What they need to see is obviously improvement, and they need to see who I am as a person and what I'm about.

Spike on… philosophy

I'm a ‘no ego’ coach.

Leaving at 4am every day (to get to work from Northern Sydney) for the last 14 years, working big hours to get my craft right as a coach, I've rounded it out.

I haven't just coached at senior level, I've gone back to academy level.

I went back to under 18s level and took the Allies through to a championship for the first time. I sourced out the Sydney Swans under John Longmire because I knew that they were a great, hard club coached really well.

Part of the reason that I went to the Swans three years ago was obviously to enhance my coaching but also experience a different culture to the goals we built at the Giants.

There, we built a culture with young players that were high draft picks that we wanted to mold into fantastic young men and make sure that we were competing in finals.

I feel like I've make good decisions in that space. Right through this whole time, when I was asked to go through the process, I felt comfortable and confident that I could do the job if I was to win it.

I spoke throughout my presentation that I don't think you can coach Essendon alone on nostalgia.

I'm a hard coach. I'll coach really hard about the way we play, the way we train, the values that we must live by as a group.

Going through this process, I got more confident each time I knew I was the right person and in the end I'm really happy to be here.

I'm here for Essendon. I’m here to deliver an outcome for our club and I’m here to align us as one. It’s something I'm really passionate about.

We won't live in the past. We're here for the now. This is what we're about now. This is who we're going to be. The people in the room that you see are united.