But one day stands out. It was the late morning of February 9 when - during a routine, but intense, training drill - a collision left 200-gamer Brent Reilly with a fractured skull and potentially worse. The long frightening hours that followed saw Walsh harshly examine himself and the job he had taken on.

Sitting for five or six hours outside the emergency ward with Reilly's parents Terry and Carolyn, wife Jaimie, her parents and Reilly's devastated close friend Scott Thompson, Walsh wondered whether he could continue to push his players to the limits that have become his trademark. Whether he could make those demands again.

Long before the Reilly accident, Walsh had realised he needed to change some things about himself. Afterwards he became convinced of it.

"Part of the old Phil Walsh might have screamed at Brent Reilly to get up," said the new Adelaide coach. "Sitting in that hospital, I really wondered if the worst happened whether I would be able to make those same physical demands on the team.

"In the end, after he came through the operation, I told the guys: 'Let's just get through the week. I won't coach and I won't make demands on you and if you don't feel you can train, then don't.

"What I've learnt from working with large groups is that we all deal with grief differently. We needed to find out who was grieving and get them the relief they needed. We did a combined session and those who needed to stay away did so.

"Everyone saw what happened. A few of them have their demons about it and we're dealing with that.

"Footy clubs are so competitive and, as a group, we judge people constantly and negatively. What I've tried to do is find the 10 things that connect us."

The quiet confidence of Reilly's Victorian country-based parents during those waiting room hours now seems justified. After five days, Reilly was sitting up in hospital and after one visit from a group of teammates he is now resting at home. "It looks like he'll make a full recovery," Walsh said.

"But it will take time. The swelling on his brain needs to recover. He can't see too many people or watch TV or anything like that. But I'm just so glad I had the time to sit with his family for those hours and gain some strength from them."

The well-documented bus accident in Peru at the end of 2012 that threatened Walsh's life and limb and saw him eschew alcohol, coffee and driving was only one part of the transformation that led him to the Adelaide coaching position. It was a left-field appointment that his friend Caron Bailey told Walsh would have given her late husband and one-time roommate Dean "a giggle".

Walsh was the first of the three final candidates who fronted for a presentation and was asked to call the third quarter of the 2014 round-21 clash between Adelaide and Richmond, which the Crows lost by 10 points. Walsh was asked to simulate a coaches' box experience as if he was senior coach. The Adelaide panel gave him 30 minutes to go away and analyse the recorded play.

Unfortunately for the other two candidates, Walsh was the only contender who offered to call the quarter cold, immediately. The result was devastating in its conclusion.

All the senior AFL coaches he has worked with have helped form his status as one of the game's oldest rookie coaches, Walsh said, from his long-time close colleague and mentor Mark Williams - "after 10 years 'Choco' and I just wore each other out" - to John Worsfold, with whom he spent five years at West Coast, to his now most fierce rival Ken Hinkley.

"I'm too intense," Walsh said, "too judgmental and I judge people by my own standards. I'm stubborn. I've got no patience. I can't stand fishing, I hate golf.

"I've always believed knowledge is power, so during my career I've spent too much time working to get knowledge so I'll have power over people. I should have been more inclusive.

"When I arrived at West Coast [Worsfold] said to me: 'We don't do that here. The best idea wins and it won't always be your idea'."

When Walsh first addressed his assistants at Adelaide, he wrote for them a list of his weaknesses. "I said to them - and this went for them as well - 'we need to do something about the morale of the troops'. Do you want me to work on my strengths or my weaknesses? We've all decided to work on each others' strengths, which should collectively overcome our weaknesses."

Walsh admits he cannot predict how he will cope this season with the fifth quarters, the extra pressure, the Showdowns and all the trimmings that come with being a senior coach in Adelaide. But he does seem to learn from his errors and regrets. When his Dean Bailey eulogy - the moving oration 11 months ago that planted him into the Crows' psyche - is mentioned, Walsh looks regretful.

"I never spoke at my mother's funeral. I didn't feel I could do it and it's one of my great regrets. Later I spoke at my father's funeral and I didn't want to feel I hadn't done the right thing for anyone who meant something to me."

In the day-to-day scheme of his new life, it is a matter of some regret to Walsh that he no longer cycles to work. The car has - as a matter of course - come back into his life. Another pet hate - talking on the telephone - has become mandatory again and he can no longer go to bed at 8pm given the new corporate demands of his job.

"One of the biggest things I've tried to change over the years, and I haven't been very good at, is taking work home," said Walsh, who turns 55 next month. "I remember one year I snapped at my son over something and he said: 'Footy's started again has it, dad?'  That really rocked me.

"So I'm working on it. For some coaches, the late-night analysis is a badge of honour. I've tried to tell people, including myself, that the solution is not in the Apple Mac computer. It's out there with the players."

One big change enforced by his new role has been accepted by Walsh with some reluctance. That has been his move to distance himself from Port Adelaide's Hinkley, although Hinkley did contact him after the Reilly accident.

His first milestone as senior coach comes on Sunday in the Crows' first NAB Challenge game against North Melbourne at Port Lincoln. Adelaide's season-opening clash is also against North. His first Showdown falls in round five on May 1.

"This is hard for me to say this," Walsh said, "because they are our great rivals in this town, but spending 12 months with him was like going to a finishing school. He is many things, but he is just so humble and respectful and so many people in the game could learn from him.

"I could talk to him about so many things and I know the difficult part for us is coming. I don't think I can be as close a friend as I was. It's not the same. It can never be the same. That friendship unfortunately has been put on hold."