Port Adelaide caretaker coach Matthew Primus says he now has an appreciation for the life of a head coach after being named to replace Mark Williams for the rest of the season.
Primus acknowledged his first week had been far from what he was used to. But he said by the chance of staying on as Power coach in 2011.
"I've got a bit of an appreciation for what goes on in a senior coach's life but that's exciting and that's the reason why I wanted to get into it," Primus said.
"It's been a big week but we got most of that out of the way on Monday and tried to keep the routine as normal as possible."
The dual All Australian conceded the success of the next seven weeks may decide whether he retained the top job permanently.
The man who captained the Power between 2001 and 2005 said he will be approaching his new role in the same way as when he led Port Adelaide on the field.
"I'll continue to be the way I have been since I've been at the club," he said.
"If that rings a bell with them so be it, if it doesn't then we will work on that. If you can get the supporters on board it certainly helps you and we're all about doing that."
The former ruckman's cause will be helped with an impressive support crew, with assistant coach Dean Laidley and football operations manager Peter Rohde amongst others, already offering some invaluable advice.
"Go with what you think you believe in," he said.
"We've got a couple of guys in the background, Dean Laidley and Peter Rohde to give me some great advice and I'll listen to that."
"You've got some people you trust and you want to listen to and that's all part of the game and part of football. In the end, we know which path we want to go down and we'll stick to that."
Primus hinted at blooding some more youth in the run home.
"We've got some young kids that we want to give games to and we've got four home games out of our next seven," he said.
Primus' first game in charge sees a difficult task in travelling to Darwin and facing a top four contender but the ex-captain denied it was mission impossible.
The 157-gamer hopes Port Adelaide can back up its resilient performance last week against Collingwood and finish the season strongly.
"It's a great challenge. We played an outstanding team last week and we're playing another very good one Saturday night. I'm very excited. We're playing a very good team," he said.
"I think the fans want a win, but I think they really want to see the effort that we put in last Friday night, they want to see that for the next seven weeks. That will start tomorrow night against the Bulldogs."