One of the best pieces of coaching advice Sydney Swans AFLW head coach Colin O'Riordan ever received was to never forget what it feels like to be a player.

Luckily for O'Riordan, who is 30, those days are not far behind him.

"Sometimes you feel like, coming in as a young person, you just want to get that respect with the group really quickly, but there is a daunting element where you know … I'm not that much older than some of the girls," he told ABC Sport on the eve of the AFLW season.

"Some of them are probably older than me."

Defender Tanya Kennedy is 33, and the list has a number of players in their late 20s.

"So it's just gaining that respect. And hopefully I have got that respect," O'Riordan said.

"What I probably have in my favour is I'm not long finished playing, so you understand what it feels like to be a player … It's a bloody tough sport to play."

O'Riordan played 34 games for Sydney between 2016 and 2022 before chronic hip injuries forced his retirement.

He remained in the Swans' ranks as head coach of the under-18 male academy and then AFLW assistant coach before being appointed the top job in December last year.

He is the first Irish senior coach in AFL/AFLW history.

He said part of holding onto the feeling of being a player was understanding the pressure of game day.

"It's a hard game. In W, you're asking the players to run eight, nine kilometres at very high speed, sprint-running, and make decisions under pressure in front of crowds, [in] front of people watching on TV," O'Riordan said.

"It's a pretty hard thing to do and yes, we train for it and yes, we get paid. I get that. But at the same time, they are still people, and that's what you hope people see."

He wants to take "a relationship-based approach" to coaching.

"I want to know who's running out for me, who's playing for me, and actually what makes them tick is huge for me," he said.

"In the W side, I feel like it's if you don't connect like that with the girls, it's very hard to ask them to do something for you if they're kind of looking at you, going, 'Well, you don't really care about us.' So having that caring element is huge for me."

O'Riordan has had to adjust to emotionally approaching the game, which he says can be up and down.

"Very much you ride the roller coaster of footy," he said, speaking of players, coaches and fans.

"Football is an emotional game. It's a game basically built on passion, and fans are passionate, and that's why you love the game.

"But also, as a coach, sometimes you got to — not sometimes, probably more often than not — you got to remove that emotional side from the passionate side.

"I think that's when you start making blurred decisions. Yes, it's emotional. Yes, it's a passionate game, but you just have to really know where that line is, which is a constant battle for anyone coaching the team."

The first game of the Swans' upcoming season is against three-time premiership side Adelaide on Sunday, August 16.

While it will be O'Riordan's official debut as AFLW coach for premiership points, the Irish import coached the Ireland side against Australia earlier this month for the historic representative game.

O'Riordan took over from Scott Gowans, who had mixed results in the Swans' early years.

The club entered the competition as an expansion side in 2022 and made an impressive semifinal run the following year, but failed to reach the top eight in the following two seasons.

Last year the Swans finished ninth on the ladder.

"It's a new chapter, it's a new beginning, and I'm just really excited to see where we can get, to be honest … politician's answer," O'Riordan laughed.

He admits he is nervous, but those nerves are a good thing.

"I think that's human nature," he said.

"I mean, you care, and yes, while you can be nervous, the second game day comes, I get a lot of solace in the fact that I've done the work during the week.

"And if we've done the work, game day is our chance to really excel in what we plan for the whole week. So yes, there's nerves, but there's also an excitement that today's the event … in my head, that should override the nerves to say, 'No, I've done the work.'"

Plus, he added, on game day "you don't have time to think too much" about emotions.