Nathan Hrovat was delisted by North Melbourne at the end of August, but he hasn’t left the building yet. In fact, he has moved upstairs and isn’t going anywhere.

The 25-year-old wasn’t offered a new contract at the end of last season, after adding 39 games across three seasons to the 30 he played across four years at the Western Bulldogs.

But while his AFL playing career is now over, he isn’t departing the AFL industry.

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Nathan Hrovat evades Jake Lever at the MCG.

Hrovat has packed up his locker downstairs and has moved into the football department at Arden Street, working under North Melbourne’s head of football operations Laura Kane, who has quickly climbed up the ranks to sit on the executive team after leaving a career as a lawyer only a few years ago.

He will divide his time this year between this new role and playing for the Kangaroos’ VFL team, while also dabbling in various internships, starting in the marketing department at Bastion Collective later this month.

And while most first-round draft picks don’t think they will have to think about life after football until they reach 30, Hrovat knew his time at the top was coming to an end during a year where North Melbourne replaced every key pillar in their football club – senior coach (Rhyce Shaw), head of football (Brady Rawlings), list manager (Glenn Luff) and CEO (Ben Amarfio) – and was prepared for the next phase of his life.

It is a new era at North Melbourne.

Now his new world involves everything from soft cap expenditure and travel budgets to arranging pre-season training camps, interstate trips and whatever the coaching department require to help North return to September for the first time since 2016.

“I read the writing on the wall a little bit. I’m very grateful for what the system has provided me over the last seven years. I’ve been able to build a really good network and it has provided me this job,” Hrovat told foxsports.com.au inside North Melbourne’s headquarters.

“Although it was tough, the transition hasn’t been hard at all. I’ve actually embraced and really enjoyed the transition. It wasn’t one where I got delisted and I didn’t know what I wanted to do next.

“I made it very clear with my manager that I wasn’t keen to go around again anywhere else. It is tough being a fringe player. I found 2019 particularly tough because I travelled a lot as a travelling emergency, so I’d travel and not play AFL or VFL. It was a really tough year for me by the nature of how it played out.

“AFL is great for the top five or ten per cent, but in reality, the rest really battle the anxiety of selection every week; are you playing? Are you not playing? Where do sit? Are you in contract or out of contract? I had got to a point where my passion outside of footy had started to grow.”

Nathan Hrovat runs down Richmond star Dion Prestia.

While Shaw didn’t see a spot for him in 2020, Hrovat is far from bitter. He now sits within a drop punt of the new North Melbourne coach’s desk and has quickly become a part of the furniture upstairs.

“There was no animosity at all between the club and myself in terms of the delisting process. I’ve got a great relationship with Rhyce and continue to have a great relationship with Rhyce and all the coaches at the footy club,” he said.

“I’m very understanding of the system and how the system works. That probably made it easier – I understand that careers prosper and they also get terminated. I love the club because of the culture that has been built here. It is a great place to be.”

Nathan Hrovat celebrates a goal during his time at the Western Bulldogs.

Hrovat was barely 18 when the Western Bulldogs used Pick 21 to recruit him from the Northern Knights. He had never worked a minute in his life then and had never sat behind a computer during office hours until Kane – who has built North’s AFLW program from scratch – asked him to join the football operations team.

“This is my first actual job — I’ve never had a real job before — I got drafted at 18 straight out of school so this is my first job and I’m absolutely loving it. It is a different stimulation. I’m going home mentally fatigued now, rather than physically,” he said.

“It was definitely unexpected. Through the course of the last two years I started building some networks upstairs around what I was interested in and passionate about post footy. I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go next, then I caught up with Laura for a coffee and she floated the role and it was too good of an opportunity to pass up.

“I have always been interested in business in sport so to be able to merge the two is where the footy ops has been quite attractive to me. It is a really diverse role and it involves a whole range of not just the footy department, but the entire club.”

It is not hard to see why Hrovat has not left the building yet. And he may not leave for a long time.