COACHING ROLES FOR JONES AND ROCK

By Ken Casellas

Champion Claremont footballer and the 2007 Sandover medallist Anthony Jones and 1996 North Melbourne AFL premiership player Anthony Rock have joined former Tigers star Andrew Foster as assistant coaches of Claremont’s league squad this year.

Coach Ash Prescott will be aided by Jones as the side’s forward coach, Rock as the defensive coach and Foster as the midfield mentor.

Jones made 147 league appearances for the Tigers, starring at centre-half-back and later in his career shining at centre-half-forward.

He was captain in 2007 and 2008 and was the club’s leading goalkicker in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007, finishing his WAFL career at the end of the 2008 season with 280 goals for Claremont. He represented Western Australia in six interstate matches and was captain of the State side against South Australia in 2006.

Jones (46) also played 82 AFL matches for the Fremantle Dockers between 1995 and 2003 and he has been an assistant strength and conditioning coach with the West Coast Eagles for the past 12 years.

The 50-year-old Rock comes to Claremont with a wealth of knowledge as a coach. A tigerish midfielder, Rock played 178 matches in 11 seasons for North Melbourne and a further 44 matches in three seasons with Hawthorn.

A year after retiring from AFL ranks Rock was a VFL premiership player for Box Hill in 2001 and then coached North Ballarat in the TAC Cup for three seasons before assistant AFL coaching stints at Melbourne (2005-06), St Kilda (2007-08), North Melbourne (2009) and the Fremantle Dockers (2016-20).

He also was the premiership coach of Greenvale in the Essendon District Football League in 2012 and 2013 before coaching St Bernard’s to a premiership in the Victorian Amateur Football Association in 2015.

The 35-year-old Foster, a brilliant midfielder, started his WAFL career with East Fremantle and played 49 league matches for the Sharks before spending three seasons with the Fremantle Dockers where he managed just nine matches because of a damaged right shoulder which required surgery and a debilitating back injury with a prolapsed disc.

He joined Claremont in 2010 and was a Tigers premiership player in 2011 and 2012. He retired at the end of the 2014 season after making 86 league appearances for the Tigers.

Darren Harper, who played 33 league matches for Claremont, mainly as a key forward, between 2002 and 2009, has been appointed as coach of the club’s reserves side.