AFL 2021: The hunt for Steve Hocking’s replacement continues as leading candidate withdraws from race

After being sounded out by the league, a highly-regarded club footy boss has turned his back on the role left vacant by Steve Hocking.

Highly-regarded Port Adelaide football boss Chris Davies will not be a contender to replace Steve Hocking at the AFL.

Port Adelaide’s general manager of football was among those sounded out by the AFL as a candidate for the vacant football operations position.

But Davies, a former SA first-class cricketer, wants to stay in South Australia.

Hocking quit the high-pressure position earlier this month, just days before the game was plunged back into crisis because of Covid-19 outbreaks across the country.

Davies, West Coast footy boss Craig Vozzo, former North Melbourne coach Brad Scott and the AFL’s competitions general manager Rob Auld were all touted as possible replacements.

Scott, who heads up AFL Victoria, is considered a favourite to fill the role.

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Port Adelaide footy boss Chris Davies won’t pursue the vacant football operations boss role at the AFL. Picture: Daniel Kalisz/Getty Images

But as the AFL continues to fixture on the run in a bid to finish the 2021 home-and-away season, it is believed the league will keep the application process open until this weekend.

Davies has become highly regarded at AFL House after arriving at Alberton from the role of the SANFL general manager at the end of the 2014 season.

Before that, he was chief executive of Woodville-West Torrens.

He has been key in the Power claiming the minor premiership last season, and now sitting in the top-four this year, through some aggressive list-management decisions at Alberton.

Hocking announced on Monday, July 5 that he had taken the chief executive role at Geelong and was leaving the AFL.

During his four years in the role, Hocking oversaw a host of rule changes, including the “stand” man on the mark rule, which AFL chief executive Gillon McLachlan has finally admitted was Hocking’s idea.

When he revealed he would be leaving the AFL, Hocking said he had accepted public backlash to changes he had made to the game, but hoped he had left the AFL in a better position.

“There’s no doubt that the fans don’t like significant change and for obvious reasons. They care about the game,” Hocking said.

McLachlan described the role as a “brutal job’, while Hocking said “It’s felt like dogs years in the past couple of years to be honest”.

The Cats current CEO Brian Cook is standing down at the end of this season after 23 years in charge.

Originally published as AFL 2021: The hunt for Steve Hocking’s replacement continues as leading candidate withdraws from race