James Kelly says an off-season of positive change under new senior coach Ben Rutten has made it difficult to depart the Bombers’ coaching panel.

The 37-year-old last week resigned from his position as assistant coach to care for his two young sons on a full-time basis.

It ended a five-year reign at Essendon for the former Geelong star, who arrived at the club as a top-up player in 2016 before joining its coaching panel in 2018.

Kelly said he left the Bombers at a promising time with Rutten at the helm.

“I think they’re well and truly on the right path, which is the difficult part of stepping back,” Kelly told RSN 927.

“I feel there’s some really good change that has happened. ‘Truck’ (Rutten) has done a really good job, and last year was really good for him to get his ducks in a row and figure out what he wanted.

“The way he’s coached this year has been great. He’s coaching the culture of the footy club first, with no real change to the way we’re playing. Already in pre-season, the players are training at a far higher level with a greater grasp on the concepts we were introducing last year and a little bit the year before.

“He’s (Rutten) bedded down some really strong cultural things. That’s the hard part (about leaving) for me, because I’m a culture-first guy and have seen some really positive change.”

Kelly said Rutten’s communication with the players had been a key strength this pre-season.

He said it was a vital skill for a first-time senior coach, drawing on his experience under Geelong coach Chris Scott during his playing years at the Cats.

“I’ve seen Chris Scott come in as a new coach and I’ve seen Ben Rutten come in as a new coach. The thing they’ve had in common is being really clear and having great lines of communication with the players,” he said.

“There’s a deck out there at The Hangar, and Truck is constantly out there for a coffee with the players. If there’s any little thing that pops up, he’s the first person to go over to talk to them and talk through it. Whether it’s an issue, some positive feedback or something he’s not seeing in their footy, he’s right on top of things like that.

“He has been clear about what he wants the football department to look like, what he wants the club to look like, and how we wants the players to behave. It’s up to them to keep themselves accountable with their behaviour, and he’s just setting the guidelines. If someone goes outside the guidelines, it’s about tapping them back into line.”

The Bombers will enter the 2021 season with eight fresh faces and one of the League’s youngest sides, but with the determination to rectify a disappointing 2020 campaign.

Kelly said he’d noticed a shift in the squad’s approach this pre-season, led by those in the middle-tier age bracket.

“At last year’s exit meetings with the players, there was a group of youngish players like Langford, Parish, McGrath, Draper, Francis, Ridley and those sorts of guys, who finished the year and showed a lot of maturity in the way they approached their exit meetings and the way they’ve come back to pre-season,” he said.

“They’re feeling like they’ve got their feet under them and are ready to be successful AFL players. They’re no longer kids figuring out whether they know how to play footy or not. They know they can play footy, now they just want to win.

“There’s been a real shift, and I feel like that shift has come from the middle group, as well as Truck being clear about it being a performance-based environment.

“Every decision we make is based on performance, and those things have gone hand in glove with each other. It definitely does feel different and certainly more positive.”