Sacked podcast: Ex-Gold Coast coach Guy McKenna reveals how club dodged an Essendon-style ASADA bullet

Ex-Gold Coast Suns coach Guy McKenna has revealed how the fledgling AFL franchise avoided an Essendon-style ASADA saga.

Ex-Gold Coast coach Guy McKenna features on episode three of the SACKED podcast. Picture: Jerad Williams.

A candid Guy McKenna has revealed how Gold Coast dodged a similar bullet to the ASADA drugs saga which embroiled Essendon during his time at the expansion club.

Former Suns coach McKenna told the SACKED podcast he had issues with ex-Gold Coast strength and conditioning coach Dean Robinson and Stephen Dank, who was briefly employed by the Suns.

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Robinson and Dank would reunite at Essendon and oversee the club’s 2012 supplements program, which resulted in the suspension of 34 players for a year and rocked the AFL.

“We brought him (Robinson) on obviously because of his record down at Geelong,” McKenna said.

“That was a fairly short term of employment up on the Gold Coast because there were certain conversations held with me …

“My simple response (to him) was ‘We are funded by $100 million by the AFL, mate. We can’t be seen to be bending or breaking a rule, so whatever we use with our players, it has to be on the green tick list. Simple’.

In a strange twist, McKenna was an assistant coach at the Bombers when the ASADA ban was handed down.

McKenna also went into detail about the bizarre press conference after he was axed, the failed experiment with former NRL player Karmichael Hunt and marquee Sun Gary Ablett’s time in Queensland.

“I never got to see Leigh Matthews, who was voted and revered as the best player and coach, and all that sort of stuff. I played around (the time of) Gary Ablett Sr, and he was a freak as a full-forward,” he said.

“Forwards are great, but a midfielder has to go and find his pill. For Gary (Jr) to do that, and deliver it in the manner he delivers it in, I have never seen that before.

“He’s a clear No.1.”