Bock, 26, was suspended indefinitely after allegedly assaulting his girlfriend outside an Adelaide hotel 12 days ago.
The All-Australian centre half-back was suspended by the club and missed last week’s win over Fremantle. But he is clear to resume his 88-game career after having the ban lifted by the Crows on Thursday.
Trigg consulted with a behavioural psychologist, a counsellor, leaders of the Domestic Crisis Centre and members of the leadership and coaching groups before making the final call.
He described the decision as a ‘testing’ one, but said the need to support Bock in his rehabilitation had won out in the end.
"When you get an incident like this it strikes hard. You want to send a message and a really strong, clear message and I’ve waivered over it a lot over the last couple of days," Trigg said.
"I did not come into this week with a pre-conceived idea of whether Nathan would or wouldn’t play this week.
"The professional advice that I have received is for him to get back to normal, get back on the bike and make sure the counselling is effective because then you’ve got a better human being on your hands.
"I have no doubt there will be plenty of people out there who’ll say: 'You’re joking, it’s simply not enough', and I understand that.
"But in the end we have to make a call that’s been tipped slightly in favour of understanding our commitment to sending messages versus rehabilitating a human being to make sure he’s right."
Trigg said Bock had expressed genuine remorse over the incident and done everything expected of him over the past 10 days.
Bock was also fined $5,000 and ordered to undertake 50 hours of community service.
He also has a court appearance pending in June.
Trigg said he was confident the penalties were severe enough, despite Bock missing just the one game.
"We understand that it’s a very subjective issue that will create debate, but it still would’ve created debate if we’d left him out for two weeks (rather than one)," Trigg said.
"It might help people feel better that we’d cracked him (if he missed four weeks). It might make some people feel better if we’d burned him at the stake I and understand that because of the nature of what we’re talking about.
"But my advice has been that missing more games doesn’t help him at all and could in fact be counterproductive to his mindset and rehabilitation.
"Our actions are not taken lightly and they are taken with the image of the AFL and our club in mind, but they’re also very significantly taken with trying to get a change in behaviour from an individual in mind."
In accordance with his bail conditions, Bock has not had contact with his girlfriend, Carlie Matthews, since the incident.
Matthews has also received support from the club, including regular sessions with an AFLPA psychologist.
