"We were disappointed with how we went early in the tournament and knew we had to get the level of performance up and we knew we were better than where we were," he said.
"It showed a lot about our mana and character in how we came back on the second day.
"To be fair we scored straight after the half [in the final] so we brought our bench on to give them a run and we knew they would hold them out.
"Southland came back, as teams usually do in sevens, but the boys showed ticker out there and that was proven with our last try when we finally got ball in hand."
Earlier on day two, Northland comfortably accounted for Wanganui 38-12 in the shield semifinal but they hadn't been in good form up until that point.
The Taniwha had struggled on day one of the competition, picking up just the solitary win over Southland. There were losses to Wellington (26-5), Tasman (24-5) and Otago (24-0).
Nock said the team stuck together well and showed fight to finish where they did with a few players standing out.
"Hayden [Jurlina] was a real workhorse. Tavite [Gadeisuva] was really solid. Whiria was great on and off the field. It was a real team effort, they played hard for each other," he said.
"Tim Blundell, even though he played bugger all, what a team man he is. What he did for the team was unbelievable but he only got through 20 minutes on the field.
"It was the most enjoyable campaign I've been involved in. We came here for the right reasons, didn't put too much pressure on everyone and made sure we enjoyed ourselves.
"We wanted the players to express themselves. Sometimes it paid off, sometimes it didn't."
