Pickering Enjoying Challenges As Senior Coach

ADAM Pickering never expected being a senior coach in the WAFL to be easy and a five-game losing run definitely is challenging, but he is learning plenty about himself and is up for the task of getting Swan Districts' season back on track.

Pickering is in his first season as a senior coach having done an impressive apprenticeship in the colts and reserves at both East Perth and Perth along with being a league assistant coach following his playing career that included time in the AFL and VFL, and ended with 111 games at the Royals.

He was appointed Swan Districts coach coming into the 2018 season and not once did he think it would be easy, but he was ready for the challenge and is looking forward to the task ahead of turning the season around to lead Swans back into the finals.

Swan Districts has now lost five straight matches following last Saturday's loss to East Perth at Steel Blue Oval and that has the black-and-whites slipping outside of the top five and without senior players like Todd Banfield, Kirk Ugle and Jarrad Blight.

The challenges are certainly significant now for Pickering in his first season at the helm at Bassendean ahead of a crucial clash with the third placed West Perth this Saturday at Joondalup Arena.

A win and Swans will likely return to the top five while a loss would leave them with an even tougher job of making it consecutive finals appearances.

Reflecting back on the start to his senior coaching career, Pickering has actually enjoyed finding out plenty about himself especially in regards to dealing with adversity, and how he can pull himself out of it to ensure the morale amongst the playing group remains high.

"It has been full on but very, very enjoyable. Even through the last four or five weeks where we haven’t had great success, seeing how I've reacted and trying to learn off myself a little bit has helped me develop," Pickering said.

"I've actually enjoyed that to see if I can get myself out of those down periods. The first 10 or so weeks were terrific with us playing some really good footy and that was great. I'm still enjoying it now week to week and coming in to work with those senior guys like Notte, Riggio, Ellard, Palmer, Howard, Gault, Blake, Banfield, Noble and all of those.

"It's really good because you can pick their brain a little bit and you know if you want to implement something, you know they can go and get it done straight away. It has been full on, maybe a bit more so than I thought it was going to be.

"I knew it was going to be busy, definitely, but the amount that you are find yourself putting in away from the footy club thinking about it, going through reviews and watching vision has been a big jump up from what I've previously down. But I wouldn’t change it, I love it."

Any playing group especially with a new coach coming in will always have some teething problems as well even for someone like Adam Faulkner who had been a mainstay in the Swan Districts midfield over the past five years.

Pickering made the bold call on the 119-game midfielder to send him back to the reserves following the Round 4 loss to West Perth. Faulkner spent four games back in the reserves before returning to the league side over the past three weeks.

Pickering acknowledges it was a tough call to make, but he was impressed with the way Faulkner responded in the right way and went back to the reserves and worked on the things he was asked to.

"It wasn’t easy and it's never easy dropping a guy that's played 100 games for a footy club. Adam wasn’t so much struggling, but he wasn’t grasping 100 per cent the way we wanted to play and his form wasn’t overly great," he said.

"He'd probably admit that but don't get me wrong, he wasn’t happy. He was frustrated but the pleasing thing with Adam is that he's a real competitor and he is straight down the line with you.

"When we went through the conversation and told him the areas we wanted him to work on, he knuckled down and did those things and fought through some injury as well.

"He played some good footy in the twos and then after a slow first week back against Peel, he was pretty good offensively for us on Saturday. It's not easy dropping a 100-game player but he handled it with first class."

At the other end of the scale, Tobe Watson has turned himself into the type of player that Pickering wishes he had three of.

He finished last season with some impressive form in the back-line for Swan Districts and started 2018 in the same way, but he has gone on to play some impressive football in the midfield and even in occasional stints forward at times.

Pickering couldn’t be higher on his opinion on Watson's continued growth at a rapid rate.

"For a kid who is still only 20, we've put a lot on his plate in reality. A guy like Jarrad Blight going down and Faulky going out of the midfield and things like that have forced our hand to play Tobe through the midfield quicker in his development than maybe we would have liked," he said.

"At half-back, he is calm, cool and is really natural there but he's started to develop over a month or six weeks through the midfield to become pretty handy through there too.

"I wish I did have one of him for every zone on the ground because he kicks the ball beautifully, handles it well and marks overhead. The future's pretty bright for Tobe."

As for his own coaching future, Pickering would like to continue his growth and make a career out of it, but right now his only focus is on the job at hand at Swan Districts and trying to get that elusive sixth win of the season on the board.

"I'd love to make a career out of being a coach and it would be wonderful if I could do it full-time at any level, but I'm enjoying my time here and thinking about that is for down the track," Pickering said.

"I'm still learning whether coaching full on is for me in terms making it a career and ideally you'd like it to be, but at the same time you are still learning about yourself.

"It's a difficult question in reality and I'm just living in the moment for now and focusing on getting these guys back on the winner's list."