Scott’s support to take over Suns job
AN ability to see past sentiment and look to the future has AFL great Robert Walls convinced Brad Scott is the right man to take over at the Gold Coast Suns.
The North Melbourne coach is among the favourites to become Rodney Eade’s successor at the Suns despite being contracted at the Kangaroos until the end of 2018.
Walls said the former Brisbane Lions premiership player was a good fit for the struggling Gold Coast given he has proven he can make the tough list calls that the Suns are in need of without letting emotion restrict his judgment.
“If you look what he has done at North over seven or eight years, he got them into a couple of preliminary finals and they weren’t such a great team,” Walls said.
“He’s extremely passionate, he’s smart. Both the Scott boys are pretty switched on, they’re no dills.
“He has a ruthless streak in him, you saw that in how North played.
“He’ll make hard decisions, he won’t let sentiment get in the way.
“We saw that last year when Brad dropped (Brent) Harvey, (Nick) Dal Santo, (Michael) Firrito and (Drew) Petrie.
“That to me was a good sign of strength.
“I think with a pretty reasonable team he did all right. And this year he has just played kids.
“I know they’ve lost about nine of their last 10 but they’re reasonably competitive and he has been prepared to give the kids every opportunity, which I think is good.
“It’s not like he has thought, hell, I better keep the old boys and we win eight games for the year, he was prepared to say, well, get rid of them and we win might win only four, it doesn’t matter.”
The Kangaroos mentor also drew praise from former coach Mick Malthouse who was the boss at Collingwood when Scott took on a development role – his first coaching gig – at the Magpies after retiring at the end of 2006.
“He has had a terrific football career both as a player and as a coach,” Malthouse said.
“He is a hard worker, he takes time to create relationships which is so vitally important. He understands the game and he is one of my better friends.”