CHARLTON has looked to the past and a familiar face in choosing its next senior football coach.
Carl Thiesz, who last pulled on the Navies jumper in 2013, will replace Mitch Collins as coach for 2026. 
Thiesz, 36, coached Harcourt to the Maryborough Castlemaine District finals in the past two seasons after leading Marong reserves to a premiership in 2023.
He faces a big task to make Charlton competitive with the better teams in the North Central league after years in the doldrums.
“Back when I was playing with the Navies we were in the finals a fair bit, and that is the aim – to get the team back into finals contention,” he told the NCN Herald.
“It will be nice to finish my senior playing career back with Charlton.”
Thiesz said that strong recruiting would be the key to improvement. “The aim is to get in a couple of very good players,” he said, noting that there was little happening on the recruitment front so soon after the end of the season.
“We’re working on a few names, but it’s early days and people want a bit of time off before making any decisions,” Thiesz said.
He signed to play with Charlton in 2020, but that season was abandoned due to the COVID pandemic.  When country football returned properly in 2022, he joined Marong, and the following year coached the Panthers reserves to a flag.
“We had some very, very talented players in that side – the reserves were pretty stacked that year,” Thiesz said.
“There were seven or eight players who could have been in the senior side, and it was such a well-built system at Marong.”
Thiesz said the chance then arose to coach Harcourt seniors, and it was too good an opportunity to let pass. Now comes the challenge to rebuild the Navies.
“All the young senior players now were probably back in the under-14s when I was last there – I would have played with plenty of their fathers,” Thiesz quipped. “I’ll bring a well-structured game plan, and we’ll have a tight-knit group playing team footy.”