Gold Coast Suns AFL: Chairman Bob East on how the club built foundations for success

After 14 years of poor performances and poaching raids, Suns chairman Bob East has declared his club is ‘on the attack’. Callum Dick analyses Gold Coast’s time in the AFL.

For the first time since 2016 Gold Coast has started the season 3-0 and not since 2014 has there been such optimism about the club’s finals chances.

Eleven years ago the Gary Ablett Jr-led Suns opened their campaign with a 7-2 record. At 8-6 they hosted Collingwood at Carrara and prevailed by five points. But the cost was steep.

Ablett dislocated his shoulder in that match and was ruled out for the remainder of the season. Guy McKenna’s side managed just one win from its final seven matches without its superstar skipper.

Club and coach parted ways that September.

Suns captain Gary Ablett is taken from the field in pain after sustaining an injury to his left arm. Picture: AAP Image/Dave Hunt

Over the next decade, Gold Coast waged a losing war to both retain its star players and remain competitively relevant.

Seven of those seasons ended with the Suns languishing in the bottom four. A laundry list of stars – Charlie Dixon (2015), Dion Prestia, Jaeger O’Meara (2016), Adam Saad, Gary Ablett Jr (2017), Steven May and Tom Lynch (2018) – all sought trades to greener pastures.

At the end of 2022, Izak Rankine added his name to that list when he asked to return home to South Australia. It was a sliding doors moment.

That could have been the catalyst for another collapse, or the circuit breaker the club needed to forge a new path.

Less than 12 months later, Gold Coast unveiled Damien Hardwick as its new coach.

It was a statement signing from a club that for too long had simply gone with the flow. An aggressive addition of a proven triple-premiership winner that has transformed the Suns from a halfway home for interstate stars to a destination club.

“We have spent a lot of time in rearguard action, trying to defend our borders, trying to keep players and hold things together. Now we are on the attack,” Gold Coast chairman Bob East declared.

“We are now the aggressor. We have built this platform, we have the right personnel, we have an amazing coach and assistant coaches and a football department that is capable.

“We are one to watch. That is the message that we are happy to sing from the hilltops because it is not hollow. It is real and it is built on a foundation of a lot of hard work.”

Gold Coast Suns chairman Bob East (right) at the press conference announcing Damien Hardwick’s coaching contract with the Gold Coast Suns. Picture: Getty Images

The club is unashamed in its pursuit of excellence, even in the face of inevitable pitfalls.

After 13 consecutive losing seasons, 2024 was to be the year everything changed. With Hardwick at the helm, Gold Coast loudly and proudly declared it was ready to play finals.

History will show that did not happen.

Rival fans sniggered. Pundits pointed and again asked the question: When will things actually change?

The first year under Hardwick was always going to be a challenge. A new coach, with a new system, that would take time to bed in.

Privately, the club new it would be difficult to see success straight away. But publicly it had to be all-in.

Club and coach collectively took stock. Hardwick added to his coaching ranks, began implementing cultural changes and circled Daniel Rioli and John Noble as priority trade targets to bolster an area of the ground that was pivotal to his long-term plans.

It is no coincidence that 2025 is the year the Suns chose to go all-in with their rebrand. A new era needed a new look – and a new captain.

Hardwick wanted a stand-alone skipper and Noah Anderson, the youngest captain in the AFL, was the perfect man for the job.

“(Hardwick) turned up with absolute conviction in wanting to take this club to finals and beyond. There was an energy that came with that, we all walked a bit taller,” East said.

“He is not the messiah. He will not be able to do it alone and that was always known to us and to him. Everyone is doing this as a team.

“You never sort of circle a year as, ‘oh, this is a complete build year’ and leave expectations to the side. So we were trying to do all of those things and sprint at the same time.

“Last year we had high expectations. Unapologetically so. There was a fair dash of hope in all that, that we could pull this all together – from our branding, our mission statement, our resourcing, our organisational structure. It was a momentous year.

Gold Coast’s complete club overhaul included appointing Noah Anderson as standalone skipper for 2025. Picture: Getty Images

“We knew the fundamental changes we were putting throughout the club were significant and meaningful and we were hopeful that we could bring it all together quickly.

“You don’t want to run an organisation that is shy or timid in its approach or too slow to capitalise on opportunities. So we have gone aggressive, we have gone bold.”

Through three games, the Suns are saying and doing all the right things. They will start favourites this Saturday against North Melbourne and next weekend versus Richmond. The prospect of a 5-0 start – four of those wins on the road – is real.

But East knows Suns fans have been scorned by false dawns before and that finals berths are not booked in April.

“Winning is what is important. That prospect of success is what will draw people in,” he says.

“We have been there, without that prospect of success. We know what it feels like and we know it is incredibly challenging to build momentum behind that.

“You can’t have the ultimate success every year, but with the confidence that you are building something, just as it attracts players to come and to stay, it attracts fans to keep turning up and for all the stakeholders in our club to double down and be more invested.”

Originally published as Gold Coast Suns AFL: Chairman Bob East on how the club built foundations for success