- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
Opinion
Stuart Dew will be the man to take the Suns to their first finals appearance and beyond in the near future.
That shouldn’t be an outrageous statement to make, particularly if you watch Gold Coast play regularly and listen to what the players have to say about their senior coach.
Yet most people don’t. They don’t watch the Suns play that much, they don’t listen to the players, they don’t have a positive opinion on the club.
It’s not hard to see why. They’ve been the black sheep of the AFL, quite frankly, since the inception. Some of it is self-inflicted, some of it has spiralled out of control.
Now, it’s sort of just the lingering aftermath of all of that. They’re always the easy answer when a new club is discussed, a new coach is on the block or a talented player is sought after.
Dew has occupied a hot seat for that long, that it’s a miracle he hasn’t been left scarred, or charred. Ken Hinkley was going to take over at some stage. Nathan Buckley seemed like a logical choice.
Alastair Clarkson was an absolute lock to replace Dew in 2022.
Now, Damien Hardwick is a certainty to coach the Suns.
(Photo by Michael Willson/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
Put simply, Dew and the Suns are the easiest target there is out there. Rarely does anyone look at how they’re going, certainly not in the same level of detail as more established teams in the competition, but rather, the long-standing perception of this club allows for surface level commentary to be made.
In reality though, Dew is only now starting to get the rewards for what he has been building both on the field and culturally at the Suns.
It’s not as if he took over a group that needed minor tweaking to play finals. The start to Dew’s coaching career has been about trying to get the Suns to a base level worth building upon, for sustained success.
He’s into his sixth season and his win percentage is just less than 30 per cent, with 34 wins and a draw from 116 matches. Obviously, it’s not good, but since the start of 2022, when things have clearly started to click for Gold Coast, his win rate is up above 45 per cent, perfectly reasonable for a team like this.
They have an identity. Over the last 18 months, they’ve been the lowest-possession team in the league, but one of the most direct. They’ve been one of the best clearance teams in the league, ranked third in that time and have been the best contested ball-winning side.
Dew’s team wins the ball and goes forward. They don’t waste time chipping the ball around needlessly or just moving it laterally from the contest. It’s aggressive, it’s fun to watch and while it doesn’t always work, it’s Dew’s way of functioning.
Defensively, they hold up well individually, it’s the efforts of the midfield and their running and pressure that dictates how many points they concede. Without Touk Miller, the task is made more difficult.
The way they handled games against Geelong, Melbourne, Western Bulldogs, even the first three quarters of the Q-Clash, has shown they have a finals-worthy defence.
Clearly, the Suns are building something strong and worthwhile. It’s so evident this group is trending upwards, guaranteeing a coaching change is laughable if it wasn’t the only real coverage of Gold Coast that we were able to consume.
Look at the playing group. Charlie Ballard is so locked into the All-Australian team at the halfway point of the season that he has had his jacket presented to him privately, according to sources.
He has only lost three one-on-ones in the last five weeks and is ranked second for contested marks and fourth for intercepts this season. His partnership with Sam Collins is quite incredible, arguably the best defensive duo in the league.
You have Matt Rowell, the best pressure player in the AFL, who has become more attacking with his disposal and willingness to kick the ball. His fitness has gone to a whole other level with his ground coverage superb.
(Photo by Matt King/AFL Photos/via Getty Images)
Noah Anderson is going to win a Brownlow too.
Nick Holman is the third-best pressure forward in the league and is involved directly in nearly two goals a game.
They’ve gone from having to rely on Levi Casboult and Mabior Chol in 2022, who performed exceedingly well to their credit, to genuine lynchpins of the next decade’s worth of offensive output in Ben King and Jack Lukosius in 2023. They’re genuine stars of the competition.
Dew is tactically sound and has spent time cultivating an environment willing to encourage mistakes in learning and promoting second-chances.
Darcy Macpherson’s switch to defence and commitment to his role defensively on top of a natural attacking flair has been superb and extremely influential on the group.
Instead of going to average but experienced fill-ins when Miller went down, Dew backed in Bailey Humphrey, whose star is on the rise. Alex Davies has been getting more midfield opportunities, Wil Powell has had his chance as “the guy” off half-back – Dew has even rewarded the likes of David Swallow, Brayden Fiorini, Rory Atkins, Sam Day and the aforementioned Macpherson, who’d all been delisted by AFL followers at some point.
Joel Jeffrey’s move to half-back looked a gem of a move in the VFL and against the Bulldogs, he was great.
In fact, when you consider that he doesn’t give up on players he believes in, the willingness to throw magnets around a little, the desire to create a strong foundation to build from and to play a completely unique style that hasn’t been seen much before, it’s almost as if Dew is out of the Hardwick academy.
And if there’s one thing that has been reflected well in modern history in the AFL, it’s that belief and trust in a head coach can go a long way in bringing forward success for your club – just ask Hardwick himself.
David King spent a week with the Suns this year and spoke highly of Dew and his experience within the inner sanctum.
(Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)
Holman spoke glowingly of the environment Dew has created at the club and the love he has for his players.
Miller, Anderson, Collins, any player who gets media opportunities highlights the positivity around the club and back their coach in.
The Suns have taken a few big scalps over the past 18 months and they’ve elevated their base so that their competitiveness keeps them in almost every game they have played.
This isn’t a group on the verge of a premiership, there’s still a lot of development to be had and work to be done to reach the greatest heights.
In terms of finally making it to September and being a competitive finalist though, that’s an attainable goal that will be reached in the very near future and it’s all to do with the foundations that Dew has put down.
So no, the Suns don’t need Hardwick to come in as a saviour, regardless of how certain some personalities may convince themselves they are.
The Suns themselves don’t even need a saviour.
The Gold Coast Suns only need Stuart Dew at the helm to achieve what they want and they’re well on track to do so.
Dew is only man for this job, and time will show that trying to replace him from the outside was foolish all along.