Geelong great Corey Enright is feeling refreshed after calling time on his career, and says he’s relishing the chance to work with the Cats’ young players.

A three-time premiership player, three-time Carji Greeves medallist, six-time All Australian and club games record holder, Enright called time on his illustrious career following the Cats’ 2016 preliminary final loss to Sydney.

No sooner had he made his decision was he snapped up by his former club as a development coach and – speaking to 1116 SEN on Tuesday morning – the 35-year-old says it was a tough call but the right one to make.

“It’s quite difficult I suppose, but also quite invigorating,” Enright said.

“I was leaning towards that way for most of the season and having got so close, obviously getting knocked out in the prelim and playing pretty poorly, all the emotions and everything comes into it.”

“At the end of the day once all those sort of emotions subsided I made the decision to finish up because I thought that I had given everything that I could. I was pretty satisfied with where I was at and looking forward to the next phase of my life.”

“Mentally, you freshen right up and you look at things probably a lot differently to what you had in the past and everything is sort of new and exciting for me at the moment.”

The Cats recruited and drafted keeping in mind there would be an Enright-sized void requiring attention in 2017.

The net result is former Carlton defender Zach Tuohy, former VFL Cat Tom Stewart and the return of the promising Jackson Thurlow – all the while retaining Enright in a capacity to work one-on-one with all three.

Enright says he’s excited to see what Tuohy especially can bring, and what a different looking defence will produce overall.

“He’s [Tuohy] had a fantastic career so far and he’s obviously come in and is then learning the way we do things is a little bit differently,” Enright said.

“We’ve recruited Zach and also Tom Stewart, who was a mature-body who played a lot of VFL footy for us.”

“We had also Jackson Thurlow who missed all of last year with his knee, so three new guys that are coming into our backline group and trying to get those guys playing together and gelling together and giving us a different look in the past.”

Listen to the full 1116 SEN interview with Corey Enright via the video player above.