Copy Cats approach for Gold Coast Suns review

West Coast CROWD GOALS Brisbane THE famous review that saved Mark Thompson’s job at Geelong and delivered the Cats two premierships in three years has formed part of the inspiration behind the Gold Coast Suns own defining club analysis.

Gold Coast CEO Mark Evans is past the halfway mark of the board-ordered review into the club’s football operations that he has not set an end date for.

Evans has spent the past three weeks holding individual meetings with staff members from coaching, recruitment, list management, high performance and any other person who has a link to the football department.

Evans said he was using traits from Geelong’s historic 2006 review, conducted by CEO Brian Cook, and his own vast experience in club management from 19 years in the AFL to deliver the most comprehensive assessment he could.

“The proof is in the pudding,” Evans said.

“The appropriateness and effectiveness of the review that (Cook) did and there will be similarities with what we are doing but there will also be differences.”

Cook was assigned the task of fixing Geelong’s inconsistency and many predicted Thompson to get the sack.

But Thompson survived and led the team to premierships in 2007 and 2009.

Evans was also at Hawthorn when Alistair Clarkson was on the verge of losing his job after a 1-6 start to 2010 before he took them to the finals in the same year and premierships in 2013, 2014 and 2015.

It bodes well for Eade, who has been credited with fixing deep cultural issues at the club while battling through an unprecedented injury crisis during his first two years at the helm.

Headline acts Eade, football manager Marcus Ashcroft and list manager Scott Clayton have already had meetings with Evans to state their plans for the club’s future and could meet with him again multiple times before it is over.

Evans said there was a firm belief from all those he had met with that the Suns had the talent to deliver success.

“It’s good to hear people’s views to try and understand the history of the Suns and to try and look back all the way through from their start up to where we find ourselves now,” Evans said.

“There is a genuine belief that we have some talent that is going to shine and trying to work out the best way for that to occur.”