Stuart Dew’s sacking again exposes the chronic management failures at the AFL’s $300 million disaster club

Last year, Stuart Dew had grown wary of footy boss Wayne Campbell and CEO Mark Evans – 12 months later tensions boiled over. Here’s the inside story on Gold Coast’s great divide.

Mark Evans, Stuart Dew and Wayne Campbell.

For those of the Hawthorn persuasion, Stuart Dew is a football treasure.

His epic third-quarter burst during the 2008 grand final helped turn the tide of a glorious premiership.

Hawthorn’s president that day was former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett, who picked up the phone on Tuesday and sent a message of support to Dew after his sudden sacking as coach of the Gold Coast Suns.

“I’ve always found Stuey to be the most endearing character. He has very, very good values,” Kennett said.

“He was a part of our flock and brought great credit to our club.”

Kennett fired off a second text to Suns chief executive Mark Evans, Hawthorn’s 2008 football operations manager.

The tone was not so sympathetic.

“When I heard ‘The Puffer Fish’ – Mark Evans – say last week that Stuey was contracted for two years, I accepted that in good faith and was pleased that he was going to be given the opportunity to build on what he had invested in to date,” Kennett said.

“I took Mark Evans at his word and was profoundly disappointed to find that what he said had no merit.

“I told Mark that he should consider his own position.”

Stuart Dew third-quarter burst turned the 2018 grand final in Hawthorn’s favour. Picture: Sam Wundke

Jeff Kennett was the proud Hawks president that day.

It’s now seen as inevitable that a fourth figure from that 2008 Hawthorn premiership – Damien Hardwick – will replace Dew at the helm of the AFL’s $300 million disaster club.

Hardwick, the former Hawks assistant coach who took Richmond to three flags in four years, is a fan of the Queensland Glitter Strip where the Tigers were based during the Covid-ravaged 2020 season.

There’s a view that some at the Suns have been working hard behind Dew’s back for months to engineer the Hardwick coup, and that the end may soon justify the means.

But the botched handling of Dew’s departure has again exposed the chronic management failures that have gripped the Suns since the club’s inception by the AFL 12 years ago.

Since Evans was appointed chief executive in February 2017, a conga line of coaches and football department staff have come and gone in his quest to transform the competition’s perpetual basket case.

Rodney Eade, Marcus Ashcroft, Jon Haines, Scott Clayton, Dean Solomon, Matthew Primus, Andy Lovell, Ashley Prescott, Matthew Lappin, Nick Malceski, Shaun Hart, Matthew Kennedy, Michelle Mitchell, Sam Coen and Justin Cordy have all departed during Evans’ six-and-a-half-year reign.

Almost all of them would have a horror story to tell about the club’s operations.

Dew is the latest fall guy for a club that blames everyone but its highly-paid senior management for its ineptitude.

Dew with Mark Evans and Tony Cochrane the day he was announced as Gold Coast coach. Picture: Dave Hunt

In 2019, the AFL Commission showered the Suns with a suite of emergency draft and list concessions, including three years worth of prized priority picks.

They were also handed Darwin as a regional academy, giving them exclusive access to the Top End’s best talent – without having to match bids on draft night – and were permitted to sign up to 10 rookies.

“Mark has been given whatever he’s asked for yet nothing’s changed since he took over,” one club insider said. “He’s a seven out of 10 who hires fives.”

In recent times, the Suns have been run by a tight-knit group of mates; Evans, footy boss Wayne Campbell, list manager Craig Cameron and commercial chief Simon Fitzgibbon, a former AFL staffer.

One Suns figure said management meetings were “really just token information sharing exercises”, while board meetings in recent years “had just been about managing (former president) Tony Cochrane”, who was replaced by businessman Bob East in February.

Since the middle of last season, Dew had grown wary of Campbell and Evans.

Dew had grown wary of Wayne Campbell. Picture: Mark Brake/Getty Images

Campbell is Gold Coast’s footy boss. Picture: Stefan Postles

Former Sydney Swans footy manager Peter Berbakov was hired as the club’s performance director late last year, but staff became confused about who to take instruction from.

A clear divide had emerged in a football department split between the Dew and Campbell camps.

By June, tensions had boiled over, impacting on the day-to-day running of the football program.

Dew brought matters to a head with his interview with the Herald Sun’s Mark Robinson last week, effectively warning those who had betrayed him to put up or shut up.

And at a heated emergency board meeting on Monday night – where a report into Dew’s performance was presented – he was sacked.

Anger lingers for those who stayed loyal to Dew and much of it is directed towards Evans and Campbell, who must be praying that Hardwick agrees to become the saviour of a laughing-stock expansion club cruelled by years of strategic mistakes and miscalculations.

Originally published as Stuart Dew’s sacking again exposes the chronic management failures at the AFL’s $300 million disaster club