Why Gold Coast Suns are on the verge of extending AFL coach Stuart Dew’s contract
Suns football manager Jon Haines says stability is a great indicator of success as Gold Coast prepare to make Stuart Dew the longest serving coach in the club’s history.
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SUNS football manager Jon Haines says stability is a great indicator of success as Gold Coast prepare to make Stuart Dew the longest serving coach in the club’s history.
A new deal for Dew, who is about to start his third season with the Suns, is imminent with the Gold Coast mentor confirming his management was close to inking a contract extension with as the two parties sort the final details on a deal that is expected to take him to the end of 2022.
Haines said both the club and Dew remained comfortable with where discussions were at.
“Both Stuey, his management and the club are really comfortable with where that process is at,” Haines said.
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“It’s not something that would take up a lot of Stuey’s thinking. That will sort itself out in the due course of time.”
Inaugural coach Guy McKenna steered the club through its first four years in the AFL, and before that in 2009 (TAC Cup) and 2010 (VFL) before Rodney Eade was sacked after his three-year deal that ended in 2017.
If Dew is successful in completing his next tenure it will take his time at the helm of the Suns AFL team to an unprecedented five years.
Gold Coast bosses were told by Dew and Haines upon their arrival in 2018 that the club reset would take time to deliver, setting out a year-by-year plan on how they would reshape the list and football it was delivering.
They overhauled the coaching and high performance department and made big changes to the list while putting a focus on building the team’s defensive and contested capabilities.
They won four games in 2018 and three last season while improving their ability to remain in the game.
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Haines said they understood the cutthroat style of the industry but hoped stability would instigate further improvement, similar to the way Collingwood and Richmond turned themselves around after sticking by Nathan Buckley and Damien Hardwick.
“We understand and were realistic of the reset we took and how much time it can take to build the list,” Haines said.
“That is what we are focused on. We don’t worry about contractual terms. We just focus on getting things right and doing the right thing by the footy club.
“Stability a great indicator of success. Not only in the AFL but if you track most sports, particularly team sports, stability is one key indicator.
“Stability is driven by having great alignment internally and having a really clear plan and great trust as well.
“You can’t have stability without other factors. We feel from certainly an alignment point of view, from planning perspective, we are really clear on what the plan looks like.
“From a trust perspective we have high trust in the organisation so if you have those three things it makes stability a whole lot more realistic. That is what we have been focused on.”
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