By Nick Creely
A new era has dawned at the Dandenong Stingrays after a raft of changes down at Shepley Oval ahead of the 2019 TAC Cup season.
The Stingrays, the reigning premier of the competition, have changed hands at the top, with long-time assistant coach Nick Cox announced as the new senior coach.
Cox was the front runner to take charge of the Rays after five successful seasons under outgoing coach Craig Black, who has joined Collingwood as a development coach.
On several occasions, Cox has stepped in as coach in Black’s absence to great success, and will have plenty of talent at his disposal as his group returns for the 2019 pre-season, hungry to build on their historic 2018 premiership.
Cox is a highly regarded coach, who is highly respected within local and elite football in the region.
In even more change in 2019, long-time talent manager Mark Wheeler is also on the move, switching across to Sandringham Dragons to take on the top job after more than decade at Shepley Oval.
Wheeler is leaving the Stingrays as a reigning premiership talent manager, and will add plenty of expertise to the Dragons in his new role.
The Stingrays are yet to announce a new talent manager, but are believed to be set to make some announcements in the coming weeks.
The Stingrays have also announced highly regarded Rye senior coach Josh Moore as an assistant coach for 2019. Stingrays’ premiership assistant Josh Bourke, a highly touted footy head and coaching prospect, has also departed, taking on the senior coaching role at Sandringham Dragons, alongside Wheeler once again.
