JADE Rawlings will exit a contract with Melbourne to take the senior assistant coach role at North Melbourne.

Rawlings, who played three of his 148 AFL matches with the Roos, has been chosen by new coach Rhyce Shaw to be the main member of his assistants group.

Rawlings will also report to younger brother Brady, who from December will assume duties as North Melbourne's general manager of football.

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North Melbourne initially sought sacked St Kilda coach Alan Richardson to work with Shaw, but Richardson accepted an offer from Melbourne to assist coach Simon Goodwin.

Jade Rawlings follows Craig Jennings and Brendan McCartney out of the Demons, who are still reviewing operations after a disastrous slide from a 2018 preliminary finalist to second last in 2019.

North Melbourne has this year forced the departures of coach Brad Scott and general manager of football Cam Joyce, while the future of chief executive Carl Dilena remains uncertain.

Brady Rawlings in 2018 as West Coast's list manager. Picture AFL Photos





Dilena had no knowledge of the approaches made to rival coaches Alastair Clarkson, Adam Simpson and John Longmire by ex-director Glenn Archer and chairman Ben Buckley, after they had sacked Scott.

As it stands, North Melbourne must pay Scott the full worth of its 2020 contract with him, about $800,000. That amount can be mitigated if Scott accepts another job in the football industry.

In his flurry of approaches to ex-North Melbourne people, Archer managed to convince Brady Rawlings, a three-time best-and-fairest winner at North, to leave his role as West Coast's list manager.

Officially, he cannot begin work for North until December 1.

Jade Rawlings has coached Casey Demons in the VFL for the past two seasons, and was also a backline coach at Melbourne.

He has also been an assistant at Brisbane, and in the second half of the 2009 season, he was interim Richmond coach after Terry Wallace was sacked.

Rawlings played 116 matches for Hawthorn and 29 for Western Bulldogs, and retired as a player at the end of 2006 after three matches with the Roos.