The talented midfielder said it’s an honour to be handed the reins as coach even as the Magpies enter a potentially crucial transition period.

On the same night he accepted his first club best-and-fairest, Yates’ appointment was confirmed to TRYC faithful at their presentation night on Saturday.

“It’s a bit of an honour to have the club ask you to coach. There’s been some very good coaches and players go through over the years so hopefully I can live up to that,” Yates said.

“I just thought it’d be the right time. I’m not getting any younger so I may as well have a crack while I’m still playing.”

Yates takes over from co-coaches Andy Carey and Andrew Clarke both of whom are yet to confirm their playing futures. Full-forward Carey struggled with a knee injury this year and could require surgery while key defender Clarke has said he’ll take a break before weighing up any plans for next season.

Midfielder Josh Ashcroft is heading back to Turvey Park while Yates said exciting forward Mitch Ward is unlikely to commit to travelling from Canberra for a third straight year.

That might sound like a tough starting point but Yates said they’re working on some replacements. And he knows that premierships are always the plan at the Pies.

“That’s the goal, we’ll see how we go,” he said.

“We are on the lookout for some quality key position players but we’ll be pretty good if we can get some of the blokes we’re looking at and a few of the younger blokes come along.”

Yates, who’ll be 30 early in the new year, said former coaches at Albury Tigers, Luke Carroll and Paul Spargo have been two of the biggest influences on his career.

“You can learn a lot from listening and watching what they do, how they go about. Luke just how he prepared and went about the whole job and Spargs has had some top level experience. He was a great motivator,” Yates said. 

In his coaching debut, he’s keen to work on skills but doesn’t anticipate too many major structural changes to the Pies’ game plan.

“I think we’ll work on a few things, probably a fair bit of skills programs and a few techniques,” he said.

“The game plan side of it might not be too much different … we’ll wait and see what happens and what players we get before we get into it.”

Injuries derailed their premiership defence this year with key players David Pieper, Dale Hugo and Mitch Stephenson all sidelined for the sudden death semi-final against the Northern Jets.

But Yates said they’d still had belief that they could live to see another grand final.

“It was the injuries that slowed us up towards the end, but that’s footy – you win some, you lose some and you also get injuries and what part of the year you get them can make a big difference,” Yates said.

“But we all still believed we could win without the players that were injured. It’s just the opposition were better on the day and that’s how it goes.”