Jason Lappin was 14 and skinny, but he wanted to play senior footy

"I just wanted to play senior footy and I was very underdeveloped, very skinny, but it was just something I wanted to do," he said.

Lappin played around six senior games with Chiltern and the rest in reserve grade, where he achieved a feat perhaps not seen before or since at any footy level.

"Dad (Des) and I shared the league medal with two other guys in the Ovens and King reserves," he offered.

"That was one of the highlights of my career to play footy with my dad and he played with (younger brother) Matthew as well."

Matthew Lappin, who was nicknamed 'Skinny', played 251 games for St Kilda and Carlton from 1994-2007.

Jason had the same AFL dreams when he was chosen at pick No.12 by Footscray in the 1996 pre-season draft.

He was an emergency for the Bulldogs' early games in the AFL and was starring in reserves.

His dreams changed in round six against Carlton's reserves at the Punt Road Oval.

"I went for a contest, back with the flight of the ball, and either Lance Whitnall or his brother slid into the contest and took my legs out," he recalled.

Lappin suffered a horror broken left leg, which required six surgeries.

"The plates and the screw that the surgeon put in wasn't allowing me freedom of movement, I was very hobbled and every time I tried to come back I broke down, I couldn't run," he said.

Terry Wallace had taken over as (the now Western Bulldogs) coach and offered the 23-year-old another pre-season.

"They told me they weren't going to go with me, we don't think that you're the same athlete that you were," he remembered after missing most of 1996 and '97.

They were right too. It took Lappin around three to four years to completely recover.

He still played terrific footy in that time, winning a premiership and best and fairest at Wodonga Raiders in 1998 before winning Coburg's top award in 2001, where he captained the VFL outfit.

But he and wife Kelly, who was pregnant at the time with the couple's first child, wanted to raise their family in the bush, so Lappin returned to his first Ovens and Murray club Wangaratta, which was coming off five straight wooden spoons.

Lappin was assistant coach to Jon Henry for five seasons as the club slowly worked its way into a competitive force.

The classy midfielder retired due to a right knee injury at the end of 2006 and when Henry stepped down, Lappin was appointed coach.

"The most important aspect I learnt at 'Wang' is the coach can't control everything," he explained.

"I wanted to control everything, training, leadership, everything and when we lost that first final to North Albury, it was a pivotal moment for me, I thought, 'I'm trying to run too much here, this is about the players, it's not about me'.

"You've got to be able to hand over the players' development to them."

The Pies gained revenge when it toppled North Albury in the grand final where Morris medallist Jon McCormick was heavily targeted in his comeback game from a broken collarbone.

"Obviously I loved Jonny McCormick, he's probably the bravest player I've been involved with, at any level, absolutely," Lappin enthused, which is a remarkable compliment given where his football life would take him.

"That was as intense and emotional a game as I've ever been involved with."

The Pies retained the title the following year, this time against Lavington, and after leading the Pies for a third season in 2009, the schoolteacher took a punt on the big time, landing a role as development coach at AFL outfit North Melbourne.

He served in the role for four seasons and with technology's role in the sport continuing to boom, he was elevated to head of performance analysis for another four years.

In 2018, he became head of football performance.

"A big part of my role that I carried the whole way though at North Melbourne was running training, so developing and implementing the drills and coaching the coaches on drills," he revealed.

"I'm quite into technology and was given a lot of freedom by both coaches (Brad Scott and Rhyce Shaw) in my role, they had a lot of trust in me doing my job and I appreciated that."

Lappin teamed up with Dr Troy Flanagan, the performance director with NBA outfit Milwaukee Bucks.

"He's a genius and was a great connection for me to come up with ways to better analyse and try and get an advantage on our competition through teaching and analytics," he suggested.

"Most athletes, particularly at AFL level, are visual learners, they learn by doing.

"As soon as you start dumping numbers on them, they just switch off.

"Brad trusted me in coming up with ways to better educate our athletes and help fast-track their understanding of our game plan and why we play this way."

The Kangaroos played massive finals against Essendon and Richmond at the MCG in front of heaving crowds.

"Game days are exhilarating," Lappin said excitedly.

But those days seemed a lifetime ago this year when the Kangaroos slumped to second last and Lappin was one of the coaching staff sacked.

"There's absolutely no bitterness, I've loved every minute of it and I would never have had those opportunities if North Melbourne hadn't taken a punt on me as a young development coach," he said.

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The Ballarat-based Lappin still hopes to continue at the elite level, but it's a lesson he taught his premiership captain Judd Porter which stands out to him.

"He always put his family first, you get a lot of footy jocks, it's just their whole life, but he really put Kelly and his young kids (Finn, now 18, and Laila, 15) first. That taught me lessons more as a person than footballer."