Tara Murray
Anthony Rocca is returning to a place he called home after being appointed as the Northern Knights boys coach for next year’s NAB League season.
The former-AFL player played at the Knights before being taken at pick two by the Sydney Swans in the 1994 draft.
He would go on to play 242 AFL games with Sydney and Collingwood, providing plenty of headaches for backmen.
Rocca said it was nice to return to the club where he has such good memories.
“I’ve always been in the area and always throughout the years seeing how the Northern Knights are going,” he said.
“[I was] in the background… without being entrenched in anything at the Northern Knights apart from going to a couple of presentation nights a few years back.
“It’s exciting to be back to a place which gave me so many opportunities in life and in football a long time ago. Hopefully I can impart some of my knowledge and experience to the players and the coaching staff.”
After retiring from playing in the AFL, Rocca moved into the coaching side of things being involved at multiple AFL clubs.
Most recently he was a development coach at North Melbourne this year.
Rocca said the Knights role gives him an opportunity to give back to the community.
“I spent 12-13 years in an AFL coaching environment, the ups and downs of that are emotionally difficult at times,” he said.
“I got wind of a role in the NAB League a couple of months ago and ever since then intrigued me to particularly be part of the Northern Knights as my background.
“Having been here a long time, associated with this club since nearly when it started, it was important to me to give back to the community and help this team and this group of players to better themselves.”
Rocca said the feedback had been positive since the announcement of his new role, with several former Knights players, who have gone on to AFL careers, reaching out to say they would lend a hand if needed.
Joining Rocca at the Knights is Allana Dickie, who has been appointed the full time girls coach.
Rocca said the two would work closely together, with one coach overseeing both programs the last couple of years.
“Allana and myself will be really collaborative with the programs that we want to try and implement throughout the whole Northern Knights coaching program.
“We’ll work really closely in creating that great environment of opportunities.”
The boys officially started training this week with Rocca saying beforehand that he was ready to get down to business.
“There’s some good kids there,” he said. “For me to single out any one or two of them would be wrong of me, I don’t really know a lot about them.
“I’ve been told some info about some of the players, reserve my judgment until I meet them and have a good training block.”
