The Gold Coast Suns AFL club have finalised its new nine-person board

GOLD Coast chairman Tony Cochrane has declared the Suns are ready to have on-field success over the next three years with the club finalising its new board.

Gold Coast Suns board members (from left) Dr Alan Mackenzie, Sam Riley, Bob East, Paul Scurrah, chairman Tony Cohrane, Simon Bennett, Leschen Smaller, Brooke Hanson and Martin Rowland. Picture: Regi Varghese.

SUNS chairman Tony Coch­rane says the AFL club is ready for on-field success in the coming years after finalising its new board to ensure they are winning off the field.

The addition of financial expert Leschen Smaller has completed what Cochrane ­labelled a “complete board refresh” that includes five new faces on an expanded nine-member team.

Cochrane, who officially took over from foundation chairman John Witheriff in April, has now shaped the board he wants to take the club forward by increasing the female presence and having younger voices at the table.

The no-nonsense leader said the club was now strong from the board down to the playing group – which just announced Tom Lynch and Steven May as co-captains – and the on-field success would reflect their current position.

“Our first key objective is we want to build a great club,” Cochrane said.

“We want to ensure that our club is a proud member of the community of the Gold Coast.

“With the new $22 million training and administration centre, we want it to be a centre of excellence for not only sports training but also for ­administration and for the way the entire football department and the medical department is run.

“Clearly we want to be a club that’s aspirational. We have got great aspirations now to have some on-field success over the next three to five-year window.

“We think we are well placed now with all the work that has gone on, particularly in the last 12 months, to be in that space going forward.”

Cochrane said the AFL-owned Suns were confident a winning culture could make the club independent and profitable in five to 10 years.

And while it has ambitions to add financial gains by hosting domestic and international cricket, it won’t be following in the footsteps of other clubs and adding a netball team as it concentrates on adding a Suns women’s team down the track.

Along with Smaller, the Suns board has added Simon Bennett, Martin Rowland and former Olympic swimmers Brooke Hanson and Sam Riley this year.

Women now make up a third of the board, the same as the Gold Coast Titans, and Riley represents all the features Cochrane was looking for in the expanded team.

Riley not only knows how to succeed despite all the challenges an athlete faces but is also a successful business woman with multiple swim schools.

The Burleigh resident is a mother of three young boys and has a big presence in the Gold Coast community.

Riley will be part of the player development and welfare subcommittee, one of three created last month along with the football department and finance subcommittees.

Riley said the timing was perfect for her to get involved in the club and felt she could contribute to the welfare aspects of the club, particularly given her indigenous background and the club’s work in that space.

“I felt like I was ready for a bit of a new challenge and I had a little bit of time that was freed up,” Riley said.

“Being around the elite sporting level is always something I’ve missed.

“That camaraderie that you feel by being part of a team or a family was such a great experience when I was swimming and it’s very much like that within a football club.”