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Gold Coast chairman Bob East says his chief executive Mark Evans was right to publicly back coach Stuart Dew despite the AFL club sacking him less than a week later.
Dew, who was contracted until the end of next season, was voted out in a Monday night board meeting with the Suns 7-9 for the season and highly likely to miss finals for a 13th-straight campaign.
Speculation around Dew’s position has been a constant in recent seasons and was amplified last week, prompting Evans to join the coach at his weekly press conference.
Evans offered his qualified support without guaranteeing Dew would remain in the job, and denied he had spoken to former Richmond coach Damien Hardwick as a potential replacement.
East said he’d wait for Evans to frame the “next steps” to replace Dew. “No. I want to deal with this bit properly,” Evans said when asked if he would now reach out to Hardwick.
The Suns led second-placed Port Adelaide at halftime on Saturday before conceding nine goals in the third term, the loss serving as the final chapter in Dew’s five-and-a-half season stint at Gold Coast.
(Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)
The 43-year-old’s axing comes just six days after Evans stepped in to stand alongside Dew at his weekly press conference.
“I’ve got a coach, this club’s got a coach,” Evans said last Wednesday. “There would be no reason why we would buy into comments about who’s available. It serves no purpose.”
Pressed again on if he had spoken to Hardwick, Evans said, “Absolutely not. “You should judge performance over medium to long term. If you get stuck in the weekly cycle you’ll be champions one week and chumps the next.”
“I’ve said time and time again, Stuey’s our coach, contracted for this year and next year. If he does a good job, he’ll be contracted well into the future. All I can say is that he’s got my support to get on with the job, manage our players and staff as well as we can.”
Evans stood alongside East this time when they fronted media on Tuesday to confirm Dew’s exit and defend last Wednesday’s show of solidarity.
“Mark … did the right thing by coming out and supporting Stuart,” East said. “Every effort was made to make this club a success.
“I don’t think it’s misleading … there should be a process of continual evaluation and continuous improvement. It did crystallise over the weeks and months that there were gaps.
“There is a clear gap between where we currently sit and where our expectations lie. The senior coach selection process will be solely designed to close that gap.
“It’s crystal clear to us that this decision was a necessary decision.”
East said he’d been to “every function, every stand, every bar” to gauge the expectations of the club’s supporters, and that the feedback aligned with the board’s decision to search for a new coach.
He added that Evans, who was Hawthorn’s football boss and AFL football operations manager before arriving at Carrara, had his backing to lead the exercise.
“Mark is absolutely top shelf and fully capable,” East said. “We all have a role now to step up … and make this decision worthwhile.”
Evans said last week’s vouch of support was made in an attempt to stabilise Dew’s position following intense public speculation, but that the situation changed when the board met on Monday.
“I can’t come out and say that once a decision has been made, and that happened last night,” Evans said.
“This time last year we were better placed in terms of wins and particularly in percentage, so it feels like there is a gap between us and the rest of the competition.
“Once we’ve identified that Stuey wasn’t going to be the ongoing coach for us, the best thing to do was to deal with it immediately.
“We think we’ve got a great list …. some experts in our football department and we think that we’ll need a new senior coach to actually go to the (desired) level.”
Suns assistant Steven King will fill in as interim coach for the remainder of the season.
Hardwick departed the Tigers in May after 14 years at the helm and has spent time travelling. However, the 50-year-old confirmed last month he was determined to return to coaching following a break.
“I’d be lying if I said I couldn’t see myself doing it,” Hardwick told the Dyl and Friends podcast. “I love it. I miss it. I’ve been out for two weeks and I wanted to miss it, if that made sense.”
with AAP
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