VFL 2024: Steve Daniel to step down as Southport’s VFL coach after seven seasons

Southport VFL coach Steve Daniel has called time on his illustrious tenure with the club – and possibly his senior coaching career – as the club lines up an ex-AFL coach replacement.

Southport coach Steve Daniel has called time on his illustrious career witht he club. Picture: Highflyer Images.

The longest coaching tenure of the great Steve Daniel’s career is set to draw to a close.

After seven years, Daniel will be stepping down as Southport’s senior coach.

He has become embedded in the Southport Sharks DNA, as the club has in his after notching his 100th game at the helm earlier this season.

It may or may not signify the end of the road for the master mentor as a senior coach.

Either way, he is wary of the ‘retirement’ word.

“At the moment I feel it’s a really good time for me to stand down … who knows what’s going to happen in a year or two,” Daniel said.

“I might decide I want to come back and get involved in coaching again part-time.

“It’s been a great tenure, I’m very proud of what we’ve been able to achieve here in my time and I’m looking forward to having a break.”

Daniel may remain at the Sharks beyond 2024 in some capacity, but is looking forward to diving into full-time work away from football for the first time in a decade.

The Sharks already have a succession plan in place, with Matthew Primus set to succeed Daniel for at least the next two seasons.

Primus played 157 AFL games and was Port Adelaide’s head coach for three seasons. He has been an assistant at Southport since 2019 after a six-year shift as a Gold Coast Suns assistant.

Steve Daniel and Matt Primus talking tactics together this season. Picture: Southport Sharks.

With two rounds to play in the VFL season Southport sits sixth on the ladder and is well in premiership hunt.

After back-to-back losses against Sandringham and Sydney, the Sharks responded on the weekend to upset the high-flying Werribee by six points and rubberstamp their flag credentials.

“It was one of the better wins in my time at Southport, Daniel said.

“With Werribee it was a real focus to put together a four-quarter effort and I think we nearly did.”

“We feel that if we play to our capabilities, I believe we can beat anyone on any given day anywhere, that’s something that is pretty encouraging going into our finals campaign.”

Daniel hopes to bow out with a remarkable 11th senior premiership – and second at Southport. It would be his first VFL flag.

“It’d be a dream come true,” he said.

“If we could finish off this year and win one I reckon that would definitely make my football coaching career done.

“It’d be a pretty fair effort, if you could talk to the football gods about it that’d be terrific.”

Southport Sharks coach Steve Daniel and player Michael Manteit celebrate the 2018 NEAFL premiership in Daniel’s first season at the helm of the club. Picture: Southport Sharks.

His illustrious career as a senior coach began some 30 years ago at the now-defunct Mt Waverley when he was just 25, and has spanned Surrey Park, Seymour, South Cairns, Tatura, Labrador, and Gold Coast’s NEAFL side – with a stint at the Carlton-aligned Bullants thrown in the mix in the early 2000s.

Along the way he built a reputation for transforming perennial battlers into – at worst, finals contenders – but often premiership juggernauts.

One club local lucky enough to reap what Daniel sowed was Seymour, a town of 6500 nestled in Victoria’s Goulburn Valley.

Daniel arrived in 2004 when the club had been battling for a decade.

Its current senior coach Ben Davey was in the twilight of his playing career and recalled when Daniel arrived and recalled his immense influence.

“He was super professional and started showing the club where it needed to be,” Davey said.

“One thing about Steve, he’s a very good salesman, he can talk his way around anything, he was a terrific guy for our club.”

By 2005, Seymour had clinched the Goulburn Valley premiership under Daniel’s tutelage, but the effects of what would be a three-year tenure were felt long after he departed.

Southport coach Steve Daniel. Picture: Highflyer Images.

“He brought a whole heap of players into our club but very few left after a year, a lot of them went on to play 50, 100, 150, one maybe even played 200 games of senior footy,” Davey said.

“After he left three guys that he coached went on to coach the club, that’s the legacy he left.

“He sees things other people don’t a lot of the time.”

When he looks back on his career thus far and all he has achieved, Daniel feels an overwhelming sense of gratitude.

“It’s been unreal, I just feel I’ve been so lucky to achieve so much. I’ve won about 10 premierships, I’ve coached state football, I’ve met so many great people along the journey and I’ve been lucky enough to coach so many great clubs,” Daniel said.

“Football’s been good to me and I’ve had so much luck.

“I look back on my achievements and I’m absolutely stoked with what I’ve been lucky enough to achieve.”