Harper Sercombe
Hillside has announced Chris Daley as its new men’s coach.
Daley has been involved in football for over 40 years with over 25 years of experience within the Essendon District Football League.
He joined the Sharks for the 2022 season, serving as an assistant coach under Charlie Denaro.
Denaro announced he was stepping down from the role during the season.
Now, at the helm of his own senior side for the first time he said he is keen to get going.
“Being fortunate to be an assistant for the last two years, I’ve had a good look at the list,” he said.
“The beauty of it is that we’ve actually signed the entire list before the senior coach was announced.
“So we’ve created a club and a culture that people are really happy to be a part of, the playing list is very tight, it’s very talented.
“We’ll just tweak it a little bit, add a couple of top end players to it and I think we can take some bigger steps again.”
Daley said he takes confidence out of the players signing on at the club, demonstrating their willingness to fully buy into what the club is seeking to achieve.
“Where the club started from a couple of years ago, it was basically a complete rebuild from almost nothing,” he said.
“We lost quite a few players over the summer leading into the 2022 season, so to build on that and to get to where we’ve got to reasonably quickly speaks volumes to our program.
“The fact they re-signed immediately, shows they can see the light at the end of the tunnel and I’m pretty sure they want to be a part of it.”
This season the Sharks performed strongly in division 1, finishing fifth and defeating rivals, St Albans in the first week of finals.
It was the Sharks’ return to finals since the 2018 season.
“[A premiership] would be the icing on the cake,” Daley said.
“But if we can improve again, I don’t think we need to improve a great deal.
“We were competitive against pretty much every side barring [eventual premiers] Deer Park.
“We showed great signs, we beat Rupertswood, we beat every other team in the competition.
“We won our first senior final in over 10 years and our first ever division 1 final.
“I think the path that we’ve taken and the growth that we’ve got within our group, if we just add a couple of top end players, and those boys will improve again straight away.
“There’s no real cap on what we might be able to do.
“At the end of the day every club wants to win the premiership, and as a club we’re in a much better space as a whole to go up, should that be the case.”
While Daley isn’t focusing on one particular position to add “top end talent” to, there was one prerequisite on the players entering the club.
“We’ll be looking to add valuable people to our club before we add the best players, and make sure they complement our list,” he said.
“We’ve created a great culture and we don’t want to damage that in any way, shape or form.
“You’ve got to be really careful about the player you bring in.”
