Ange Postecoglou names two Celtic golden rules as he heaps praise on Dundee United boss Tam Courts

Ange Postecoglou has two coaching rules of thumb that have never diminished with age.

The pressure to deliver success and the pain of defeat remain as acute as the day he started to cut his coaching teeth at South Melbourne a quarter of a century ago.

It was revealing to listen to the Celtic boss play the role as wise sage as he spoke of relative apprentice managers such as Dundee United’s Tam Courts, recently deposed Dundee counterpart James McPake and possible pretender to his own throne, Scott Brown.

That wisdom that only comes through taking the blows as a boss as well as the plaudits is time well-served for Postecoglou who insists he’s as polarised as ever on the prize and failure is felt as deeply as he did when learning his trade Down Under.

He said: “Your first job is a really critical one, it often dictates whether you’re going to have a career in the game at that level or not.

“It’s not just about being successful, it’s about the way you conduct yourself and the way you handle the pressure, people notice these things.

“So it’s really important when you’re starting off that you really embrace the craziness of the role and how all-encompassing it is, because it doesn’t change.

“Twenty-five years later, as I’ve said to people, a loss today hurts me just as much as it did 25 years ago.

“All the same sort of pressures I had in my first year in terms of the expectations on myself, they’re still there, so that doesn’t change.

“If you can embrace that early on, then it probably means you’ll be able to carve out a career for yourself, because that’s the key.

“Often young managers start off wanting to be a manager, not understanding that success for any manager, what it looks like is having a career.

“If you can