BY his own admission, Andrew Dunemann never realised the potential he demonstrated when he shone as one of schoolboy rugby league's brightest stars in the early 1990s.
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Dunemann, who clocked on yesterday as one of Knights coach Rick Stone's two new assistants, hopes the same sentiments are never expressed about his coaching career.
The skilful playmaker was the 1992 Commonwealth Bank Cup player of the year an award Peter Sterling, Greg Alexander, Paul Langmack, and Ben Elias had won before him.
Dunemann went on to play almost 250 senior games in a journeyman career that included stops at the Gold Coast, North Queensland and South Sydney, then English clubs Halifax, Leeds and Salford, before he finished with two appearances for Canberra in 2007.
Having captained Queensland Residents as an 18-year-old, and as an on-field leader because of the position he played, he said he had always contemplated coaching once his playing days were behind him but began to seriously consider the idea while playing at Halifax.
The bug bit harder when he was educated by future England coach Tony Smith, younger brother of former Knights boss Brian Smith, at Leeds. Coaching became his primary form of employment in 2007, when injuries forced him to retire after just two games for Canberra and he joined then Raiders coach Neil Henry's staff as an assistant.
He said Henry recommended him at the end of that year for the head coaching position of the Northern Pride, the newly formed Cairns-based Queensland Cup club, and he guided the Pride to the preliminary final last year and a grand final loss to Sunshine Coast this season.
Stone noted his achievements and appointed him and former Manly assistant Craig Sandercock to replace Trent Robinson and Rohan Smith for the next two years.
"I probably didn't achieve what everyone thought, or what I thought I might achieve at the start, but I was that young bloke once and I think that sort of sets you up as a coach because you've experienced a lot of it yourself," Dunemann, 33, said of his playing career.
"Then I had about 13 different coaches along the way so I've tried to pick the brains out of a few of them."
Dunemann said some of those included former Cowboys coaches Tim Sheens and Graham Lowe.
He believed coaching in Cairns for the past two years had prepared him well for his stint in Newcastle because both cities were "real rugby league towns".
"I didn't know Rick before now but I got a phone call from him and it just went from there. He said he'd done some research on me and was keen to get me down here."
Dunemann said his duties would include working with the players who handle the ball the most the halves, hookers and fullbacks.
"They've got some really good players in those areas so I'm really looking forward to working with them and helping them with their game, and also with the other guys to try to develop them up to the standard of players like Kurt Gidley," he said.
[PI9016] Knights playmaker Ben Rogers will have minor surgery next week to have a cyst cut out of his foot and bone spurs removed from his other ankle.
