Gold Coast coach Rodney Eade is presenting a strong case to remain in charge at the Suns beyond 2017
AFTER Round 2, Rodney Eade was in serious trouble. But over the next six weeks, the Suns leader could ensure the club has to keep him beyond this season, writes MARK ROBINSON.
Mark Robinson
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AFTER Round 2, Rodney Eade was a dead man doing whatever he was doing.
It wasn’t coaching, according to some observers.
For all intents and purposes, Eade, at 59, was the cantankerous old bloke with old ideas and was only minding the seat until the new Gold Coast chief executive Mark Evans — who was on permanent loan from the AFL — found a younger, more savvy and more in-tune coach to the gen whatevers to take over.
The witch-hunt for Eade began early.
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The Round 1 loss to the Brisbane Lions prompted fierce commentary.
The Suns know where it started, and from who, but even in this age of instant commentary, declaring as fact Eade wouldn’t be coaching in 2018 broke all kinds of records for premature assassination.
The annihilation at the hands of Greater Western Sydney in Round 2 made it much worse.
He’s gone, they said. Take it to the bank.
About this time, it was also said the impending Round 4 game Carlton was D-Day for Eade. In other words, if Suns didn’t win, then Eade faced the sack.
Well, that day came and went and Eade was still standing.
In fact, after that early commentary, the critics have quietened.
So much so, that after losing their first two matches, the Suns have won three from five and the pendulum has swung back in Eade’s favour.
That’s not to say the Suns will sign him in the next month to a new deal, but clearly Eade is not the dead man walking as was declared five weeks ago.
Eade is two years and seven matches into his third incarnation as an AFL coach and it’s staggering that a man of his nous, experience and refined ways wouldn’t be required at the Suns as they continue to rebuild on and off the field.
In Eade’s first year — 2015 — he was a cultural attache more than a footy coach. The club was on its knees when he took over. There was drugs issues. Players wanted out. The club wanted players out. And Eade won one game in his first 12 matches,
His second season was beset by injuries. At one stage, he didn’t have a midfielder more than 21 years-of-age and the six wins was seen as solid and the 10 losses under four goals as promising.
His third season is warming up.
And if he finishes with, say, 10-12 wins and nearing the finals, why is it inconceivable that he doesn’t go around again?
Why is it that Damien Hardwick is into his eighth season, Nathan Buckley is into his sixth and Brad Scott is into his eighth, for example, yet Eade into his third season and is seen by some as having had enough time already?
Norm Smith as coach and Jock McHale as his assistant — and both in their prime — couldn’t have made much more from the ruins of the Suns at the end of 2014.
The man who will decide on Eade will be Evans.
In fact, Evans will decide on the futures of about a dozen people in the Suns football department this season, with the positions of coach and head of football (currently Marcus Ashcroft) high on the agenda.
Who knows if Evans had preconceived ideas on Eade.
They are not without history. Those two and their wives travelled to Ireland with the indigenous international team in 2013 and the two of them got on well, as did Lynne Evans and Wendy Eade, who remain good friends.
That means not much really other than they are personal friends as well as business comrades and one has more hand than the other. Hmmm.
But what Evans does know is Eade is enthused, there’s young talent on the list, the game style is effective although the defensive mechanisms are a work in progress as it is for many teams, the development areas have improved and the leadership programs are unearthing young gems led by Tommy Lynch.
And if you’re as good as your last game, Evans should be rapt.
The Suns dismantled Geelong and a win on Sunday in China would leave the team four-four with Melbourne (Darwin), West Coast (home), Hawthorn (MCG), Carlton (home), St Kilda (Etihad) and North Melbourne (home) to come over the next six weeks.
The six weeks loom as critical to Eade’s future.
At present, however, there seems to be a set against Eade by some observers.
It was said Eade didn’t do himself any favours with his commentary ahead of the China trip, about the travel time and weather and asthma and whatever else he said.
And it was said the AFL didn’t like it.
So what if the AFL didn’t like it?
Eade was asked a question, he answered with normal Eade verve — of course he doesn’t want to play in China — and suddenly he’s at odds with the AFL which somehow, maybe, might be held over his head at a later date.
What rubbish. Where are we? Russia? Isn’t a coach allowed to express his feelings without being scolded as if he’s been a naughty boy.
Suns chairman Tony Cochrane made a joke about it all. “Rodney is a coach, not a travel agent,’’ he said. Smart man Cochrane. Erratic, but smart, and the discussion quickly lost its impetus.
Clearly, there’s people who think Eade is too old and it must be asked: Too old for what?
Age is irrelevant as long as the message is being adhered to, the message is modern and fluid and the game plan is the same.
Eade has been a defensive coach (Sydney flood), and an offensive coach (Bulldogs run and gun) and continues to be an offensive coach while trying to administer an 18-man defensive program at the Suns.
As for ball movement, ask Geelong’s Chris Scott about the Suns’ ball movement, having given up 71 inside 50s last weekend.
Clearly, Eade has the players.
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He will be mainly judged on wins and losses this year and if it goes pear-shaped, Evans will almost certainly move on him.
But Eade’s job this year should also be judged on belief, precisely whether he can deliver it and his players believe what he’s delivering.
What the past five weeks have shown is the players want to compete, they want to believe, and if that continues then Evans might have a pretty simple decision to make at the end of the season.
Originally published as Gold Coast coach Rodney Eade is presenting a strong case to remain in charge at the Suns beyond 2017
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