BUILDING CULTURE

Q

How do you believe the Gold Coast Suns are positioned after you’ve been at such a successful club in Hawthorn?

A

Gold Coast have in their CEO (Mark Evans) a man of extraordinary good values, great integrity who I respect very much and who I speak to very regularly. You have now got a coach (Stuart Dew) who came to Hawthorn and helped us win a flag in 2008, without him we wouldn’t have won it. I’m expecting the Gold Coast now to start building themselves up again as a major team and I have said to (Evans) if there is anything I can do or we at Hawthorn can do to help him then we will. It is important for the competition that all the clubs are given a chance. But I’m focused on what we are doing.

Q

The AFL’s coaching and administration ranks are littered with former Hawthorn players and coaches including Damien Hardwick (Richmond) and Luke Beveridge (Western Bulldogs) who have won the past two premierships. How much does that reflect the club’s system?

A Some of our people get upset that we have lost Sam (Mitchell) to West

Coast and Luke

(Hodge, pictured) to Brisbane Lions. I see it as reflection of the professionalism of Hawthorn. We have got good values, we are a family club, we train people very well and we develop a really good spirit of people working for each other. We have six coaches, two administrators and now the next group of people in assistant coaching positions. Hawthorn’s people will influence the competition for at least 20 years. I can see Sam Mitchell becoming a senior coach in three or four years and Luke is the same.