Who’d coach?
emma.greenwood@news.com..au MEMO to any coach applying for the Gold Coast Suns or Gold Coast Titans head coaching position.
Look in the mirror and repeat this mantra: “If I am employed as an AFL or NRL head coach, it is highly likely that at some stage of my career, I will be sacked.
“It does not make me a bad person, or necessarily, a bad coach.
“That’s the way of professional sport in a highly competitive arena.”
For all the talk of personality politics, conflicts between coaches and players and club needing a new voice at the helm, professional sport eventually comes down to one thing: winning and losing.
Had the Titans made the finals again on the back of their courageous effort last year, it wouldn’t have fixed the problems between Jarryd Hayne and Neil Henry but it would have papered over the cracks enough to allow the coach to see out his contract.
Similarly, the Suns’ former coach Rodney Eade is a vastly experienced mentor, arguably the type of man the club needs to continue to correct their culture and take the club towards a maiden finals appearance. But after three years at the helm, he had brought the group no closer to the eight than foundation coach Guy McKenna. And in the end, that was all that counted.
Professional sport is a cutthroat business at times.
The AFL and NRL are multi-billion dollar businesses and individual clubs operate multimillion-dollar budgets.
The Gold Coast is an incredibly fickle market and neither the Titans nor the Suns have yet gained a core group of supporters big enough to allow them to ride the peaks and troughs of sporting life without needing to make big changes.
Reviews will be carried out at the end of the season and while both have made one tough call, further are needed.
Neil Henry and Rodney Eade are good men. They served their clubs and sports well but it wasn’t enough.
In the struggle to survive, the Suns and Titans need to be better. They need to be more competitive on and off the field.
The clubs have made the tough call on coaches, it’s now up to the players and administrators to move them forward.