External panel to help find new coach

THE Suns will recruit a panel of external stakeholders to find Gold Coast’s next coach.

Gold Coast chief executive Mark Evans met with the club’s board last Thursday to finalise the list of experts that will be brought in to help find Rodney Eade’s successor.

It is understood the club has moved away from the method of using inside staff to decide on the top coaching job, something Gold Coast adopted in the lead up to signing Eade after Guy McKenna’s sacking.

The Suns are expected to announce a group of up to five experts from largely outside the club this week that will choose their preferred candidate before recommending them to the board.

Then Suns boss Andrew Travis was chair of the coaching selection panel brought together at the end of 2014 following McKenna’s exit.

Travis was joined by then Suns coaching director Malcolm Blight, football manager Marcus Ashcroft and board members Tony Cochrane and Dr Alan Mackenzie.

With Ashcroft’s own position still not guaranteed on the back of the current football department review, the Suns have established the need for experts without ties to the club to identify a suitable coach.

Evans is expected to deliver the rest of his findings from the review in September.

Gold Coast could also find out as early as today whether their application for an AFLW team has been successful.

The AFL commission is meeting in Melbourne where they will decide how many clubs to add to the current eight-team league in 2019.

The Suns are outsiders to secure a licence but believe they are ready on the back of a new $22 million training and administration base and exponentially growing talent pool.

Brisbane, lost the grand final to Adelaide Crows in front of 15,610 at Metricon Stadium, are the currently the only Queensland team.