New Wodonga co-coach Jack O'Sullivan admits he's a "footy nuffy" and has vowed he won't ask a team-mate to do anything he's not prepared to do.
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The Bulldogs landed a cracking coup last Friday when they snared the two-time Goulburn Valley League Morrison medallist as a co-coach to Jarrod Twitt.
Forty-four-year-old Twitt is a two-time Bulldogs' best and fairest and member of their last premiership side in 2004.
"Obviously the Ovens and Murray is a great standard and the opportunity to coach was something I jumped at," O'Sullivan suggested.
"It's something I always thought I would do, even when I was a kid.
"Working with Twitty and the opportunity to learn from him, it's ideal to take a senior role and not have all that pressure of doing it by myself.
"I really want to dive into it head-first, although I've still got so much to learn as a player and obviously as a coach and I've got Twitty there to guide me."
Twitt coached the 'Dogs for five years from 2006, including three successive preliminary finals (2007-2009), while he also led Holbrook for four seasons.
At 25, O'Sullivan will be the league's youngest coach, five months younger than Wangaratta Rovers' Sam Murray.
Originally from Romsey, around 50 minutes north of Melbourne, he played for Calder Cannons at under 18 representative level and also played two games for Coburg in the VFL.
O'Sullivan joined GV outfit Seymour in 2021 and won the league best and fairest.
He suffered a season-ending shoulder injury in a practice match in 2022 and then returned to claim a second medal this year.
"My mates call me a footy nuffy," he laughed.
"I'll watch and read about as many games as I can, if I get bailed up at a party with someone, it's normally talking footy for about 45 minutes.
"I live and breathe it, it probably gets a bit draining on mum when she listens to my old man and I talk footy for about two hours, I think she joins in now, she's used to it (laughs)."
O'Sullivan captained the GV in its loss to the O and M in May, where he impressed with his 'in and under' midfield work.
"I'm not really inspirational with my words, so I just try to lead by example. I won't ask anyone to do anything that I'm not prepared to do myself, whether it's putting your head over the footy or laying a big tackle," he explained.
O'Sullivan will remain Essendon-based.
"My main role through the week will be looking at vision and cutting that up (for the players to look at), I'll do a bit of 'oppo' analysis and it's pretty easy to jump on Zoom these days."
O'Sullivan graduated from famous football nursery Assumption College, Kilmore, in 2015 and has already spoken to another former student in Lavington's Jake O'Brien and Myrtleford's Seymour recruit Kyle Winter-Irving on the league's standard.
He's also known as 'Jacko', which is handy because Wodonga's other Jack O'Sullivan is nicknamed 'Sully'.
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