Copy Cats all part of review
THE famous review that saved Mark Thompson’s job at Geelong and delivered the Cats two premiership in three years has formed part of the inspiration behind the Suns’ own defining club analysis.
Gold Coast chief executive Mark Evans is passed the halfway mark of the board-ordered review into the club’s football operations, for which he has not set an end date.
For the past three weeks Evans has held individual staff meetings – ranging from coaches, recruiters, list managers, high performance personnel and any other person with football department links.
Evans said he was using traits from Geelong’s historic 2006 review, conducted by chief executive Brian Cook, and his own vast experience in club management from 19 years in the AFL to deliver the comprehensive assessment.
“The proof is in the pudding,” Evans said.
“There will be similarities with what we are doing but there will also be differences.
“I would have had 19 years of involvement at AFL level and I can guarantee you I have been involved in at least that many assessment pieces.”
Cook was assigned the task of fixing Geelong’s inconsistency and many predicted Thompson to get the sack.
However Thompson survived, Neil Balme taking over as football operations boss and the former led the team to the 2007 and 2009 premierships.
Evans was also at Hawthorn in 2010 when Alistair Clarkson was on the brink after a 1-6 start before finals that year was capped by flags in 2013, 2014 and 2015.
It bodes well for Eade, credited with fixing deep cultural issues while battling 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 and could meet with him again in the review.
Evans said there was a firm belief that the Suns had the talent to deliver success.
“It’s good to hear peoples 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,” he 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.”
Evans is a big supporter of Eade’s decision to blood young players who can form a mature list despite any age barrier.
“The pleasing part of me over the last four to six weeks is we are giving games to younger players and debuting players,” Evans said.
“The last two games in particular we have showed to the crowd that we were prepared to fight the game out even though things weren’t going brilliantly for us in terms of the number of players available.”