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Two sources with knowledge of the appointment confirmed that King would be given a three-year contract.<\/p>\n
Guerra said King had been part of successful programs at Geelong (as player and coach), at St Kilda (under Ross Lyon), and with the Western Bulldogs when they won the 2016 premiership.<\/p>\n
Asked how King matched Melbourne\u2019s needs as a football club, Guerra said: \u201cHow do we be competitive and stay competitive.\u201d<\/p>\n
The new Melbourne CEO described the Demons\u2019s aspirations: \u201cWe want to get competitive really quickly and then hopefully contending (for the premiership) in the not too distant future.\u201d<\/p>\n
The panel that settled on King included current and future presidents Brad Green and Steven Smith, Guerra, football general manager Alan Richardson, ex-Essendon skipper Jobe Watson and Melbourne Storm executive Frank Ponissi.<\/p>\n
Guerra cited Adelaide\u2019s rise from 15th to minor premiers as an example of how teams could make rapid progress.<\/p>\n
King had a taste of senior coaching, having coached Gold Coast Suns on an interim basis, for seven games, after Stuart Dew was axed in 2023.<\/p>\n
He replaces 2021 premiership coach Simon Goodwin, who was sacked with a year remaining on his contract last month.<\/p>\n
King intends to coach out the season with the Cats, who are through to next weekend\u2019s preliminary finals.<\/p>\n
In a statement, Melbourne highlighted King\u2019s elite football intelligence and how he had emerged<\/p>\n
\u201cSteven brings an abundance of experience from across the league, having held coaching positions at St Kilda, the Western Bulldogs, the Gold Coast Suns and Geelong. I think it\u2019s safe to say he was pretty impressive on the field too,\u201d said Demons president Brad Green.<\/p>\n
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\u201cSteven has elite football IQ and a deep understanding of the game. He is highly competitive, places a strong focus on connection, and has a coaching philosophy we think our players will thrive under. During the appointment process, it became more and more clear that Steven was the ideal candidate for us.\u201d<\/p>\n
King played in Geelong\u2019s drought-breaking 2007 flag before moving to St Kilda, where he played for three years including in the losing 2009 grand final.<\/p>\n
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He remained at Moorabbin as an assistant coach before continuing his apprenticeship at the Bulldogs, where he was part of the coaching panel that steered the Dogs to the extraordinary 2016 premiership.<\/p>\n
He moved to the Suns in 2023.<\/p>\n
\u201cI began my AFL career in 1996 and have experienced it all across the past 30 years. I\u2019m excited to bring my experience to the club and see what we can achieve, together, from next season and beyond,\u201d King said in a statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t wait to meet the playing group, my fellow coaches, the staff, and the Demon faithful, and start building towards 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Loading Two sources with knowledge of the appointment confirmed that King would be given a three-year contract. Guerra…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":137210,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[560],"tags":[638,64,63,55,639,85],"class_list":["post-137209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-afl","tag-afl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-australian-football-league","tag-australianfootballleague","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/137210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}