Former Gold Coast Suns assistant coach makes major return to football

A former AFL hardman has emerged from the football wilderness two years after leaving the Gold Coast Suns, joining forces with a battling northern NSW club.

Dean Solomon and Andrew Ryan from Tweed Coast Tigers.

Former AFL hardman Dean Solomon has emerged from the football wilderness two years after leaving the Gold Coast Suns.

Solomon, a former assistant coach for the Suns, will make his senior coaching return with the Tweed Coast Tigers for the 2023 season.

The move is a massive gain for the northern NSW club who finished winless in the 2022 QFA Div 2 season.

Solomon will lead the senior men's side in their comeback season, but will also oversee the entire football program including juniors and women‘s.

Solomon said the move was the perfect opportunity to re-enter the football world after he was let go by the Suns in 2020 amid cost cuts.

The axing was a shock to the football world with two years left on his contract and three games as interim senior coach under his belt.

But the Suns loss is Tweed’s gain as they set their sights on an eventual QAFL berth.

“To be able to coach my own team, a team that’s in my own community where I’ve forged a lot of relationships, it’s so important,” Solomon said.

“It’s going to be a great experience for me, I think it’ll be really nice to meet the group, adapt, learn how they operate, and I’ll learn to adapt as well to the level I’m coaching at.

“I’ve had a year and a half out of the game in the AFL system, I was lucky enough to do three months of assistant coaching with the Giants at the back end of this year with Mark McVeigh as the interim coach.

“I obviously really enjoyed that and footy’s been in my blood since I was born, so to re-enter at a different level and a new capacity is a really nice fit.”

Dean Solomon and Andrew Ryan from Tweed Coast Tigers.

Solomon will have a major task on his hands as he leads a QFA Div 2 side that finished wooden spooners, but said he was confident in the talented he can muster from across the region.

“When you think about AFL, northern NSW is an area that’s rugby dominated. But clubs like Tweed Coast, in the grassroots level there’s a really good group of kids coming through who want to be the best they can be.”

While Solomon has plans to take this club as far as he can, the 209 AFL gamer said he wasn’t ruling out a return to AFL level coaching.

“I won’t ever say never (to a return to the AFL),” he said.

“In the long term that could arise again, but in the short term I just know I’ve got a really firm focus on my business and the Tweed Coast Tigers.

“In five or ten years time that opportunity might arise again.”

Former Gold Coast Suns assistant coaches Matt Kennedy and Dean Solomon are starting a new gym over the border at Kingscliff called "The Gym at Salt". Picture Glenn Hampson

Solomon has been living in Kingscliff for eight years and opened his own gym, The Gym at Salt, in 2020 with Gold Coast assistant Matt Kennedy.

Solomon plans to use his facilities in collaboration with Tweed’s regular training.

“A lot of our members at the gym are already from the Tweed Coast Tigers and we’re fortunate enough to have built those relationships over the past two years.”

Tweed Coast Tigers President Andrew Ryan said the news was “unbelievable”.

“For us, it puts us in the forefront of anybody who wants to come into the region and play football,” Ryan said.

“We’ve got desires to end up in the QAFL one day, we want to be that destination club for anyone in the area.

“We’re absolutely stoked, we couldn’t have wished for anything better.”