Steve Daniel

Stephen Daniel (born 1967 or 1968) is an Australian rules football coach who most recently served as the head coach of the Southport Sharks in the Victorian Football League (VFL).

Daniel is a multi-premiership-winning coach, with thirteen grand final appearances across multiple teams and competitions in Victoria and Queensland.

Career Daniel began coaching in Victoria after his playing career at Mount Waverley was ended in 1989 because of a severe car accident, which resulted in him suffering a broken back, neck and legs.

Daniel moved to Queensland in 2007 to become the head coach of the South Cairns Cutters in the AFL Cairns competition. South Cairns lost the 2008 and 2009 grand finals to the Cairns Saints.

In 2010, Daniel returned to Victoria for family reasons and spent one season coaching Congupna in the Murray Football League (MFL). He was criticised by Shepparton coach Richard Warburton for attempting recruiting two players who were contracted to Shepparton. Daniel returned to the GVL for the 2011 season with the Tatura Football Club and won the grand final the following year against his former club, Seymour. He later described the 2012 GVL grand final as "one of my hardest days in football", saying he "[calls] Seymour my club".

On 31 July 2013, the Labrador Tigers announced Daniel would serve as the club's senior coach in the North East Australian Football League (NEAFL) from the 2014 season. However, Labrador's NEAFL license was revoked the following month as part of a restructure of the competition, with the club returning to the Queensland Australian Football League (QAFL). This did not prevent Daniel coaching Labrador, which finished runners-up in the QAFL in 2014 before winning the 2015 grand final to break a 21-year senior premiership drought.

Following Labrador's QAFL premiership, Daniel was signed by the Gold Coast Suns as the club's NEAFL coach. The Suns finished sixth on the ladder in 2016 and fourth in 2017, when it reached a preliminary final for the first time. He left the Suns at the end of the year to become the head coach of the Southport Sharks, which had recorded its worst NEAFL position in 2017 after finishing ninth out of ten clubs.

With Daniel as head coach, Southport's playing list underwent significant changes to include twenty-five new players for the 2018 season. Southport finished runners-up in 2019.

After the NEAFL disbanded in 2020, Southport joined the VFL. Under Daniel, the club finished second on the ladder in 2021 before the season was curtailed due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. Daniel served as an assistant coach for the VFL's representative team against the South Australian National Football League (SANFL) in April 2024.

On 8 August 2024, Southport announced that Daniel would step down as head coach at the end of the 2024 VFL season and be replaced by Matthew Primus. The Sharks qualified for the 2024 grand final from fifth place, but were narrowly defeated by . Overall, Daniel had a win–loss record (including finals) of 67.6% throughout his eight seasons at the Sharks.

Daniel coached the Queensland Country men's team in a representative match against a combined AFL Sydney/Canberra team on 11 July 2026.

Statistics Coaching statistics 2009

2010

2011

2014

2015

2016

2017

2019

2020

2021

2022

2023

2024