Sharks show faith in Bock to turn tide
NATHAN Bock is confident he can steer Southport back to the club’s glory days after being reappointed to coach the Sharks again next year.
Bock, the former Adelaide and Gold Coast AFL defender, had the second term of his original two-year deal ratified by Southport’s football department this week.
And the 33-year-old now has a target of finishing off this season with some success, followed by what will be a significant shake-up of the playing roster.
Southport play Northern Territory Thunder at Fankhauser Reserve, Musgrave Hill, today (noon start) needing to win and at the same time have Aspley beat the Gold Coast Suns up in Brisbane.
“It is good that the club has obviously shown some faith and confidence in me to do the job,” Bock said.
“I believe I have improved on last year in terms of coaching and it’d be nice to finish this year off really strongly.
“But the bottom line is that you have to look at where we’re at. We need to strengthen our list so we can be competitive at the top end of the ladder, that means up against the AFL reserves sides.”
Bock has a 50 per cent success rate with Southport, winning 18 of 36 games over the past two seasons.
He conceded that some of his regular players may not be in the black V next year and, should the Sharks not scrape into the top six for the finals, this could possibly be the last game for some of them.
Southport president Alan Mackenzie said it was a unanimous decision by the football department to reappoint Bock.
One thing for certain is that the Sharks have to improve on last weekend’s insipid effort when they registered only 30 tackles in a poor loss to the Suns.
There was a surprise when they named their team for today with last weekend’s stand-in captain Evan Panozza being left out of the side.
The Sharks regain quality in Todd Grayson, Rob Clements, Lachlan Ritchie and youngster Connor West.
They have lost Zak Saad and Stuart Donnelly to the Suns, who can stitch up a finals berth if they can beat Aspley at Graham Road in Brisbane.