Suns ready to secure Haines
2001 national draft pick No.40 to Geelong (fatherson); 2010 uncontracted player selection to Gold Coast; traded by Gold Coast to Geelong in 2017 for 2018 second-round draft selection (not used)
Geelong premiership sides 2007, ’09
Brownlow Medal 2009, ’13
Geelong B&F 2007, ’09 (equal)
Gold Coast B&F 2011-13, ’17 All-Australian 2007-14
GOLD Coast is about to lock away another key pillar of the future with football manager Jon Haines to extend his contract with the Suns.
Much of the focus has been on the announcement of coach Stuart Dew’s impending deal but Gold Coast have also moved to ensure his right-hand man is by his side in the coming years.
Haines revealed his talks with CEO Mark Evans had been positive and declared he would be at the club beyond 2020.
“I’ll be here,” Haines said. “We are just working through what that looks like.
“It hasn’t been a priority over the past few months while we work out what is going on, but that will sort itself out over the next little bit.
“We are all keen to see it through and feel like we have done a lot of hard work over the last couple of years to get the foundations right.
“Now we can start seeing some good signs. We will have a lot of hard work to do.”
Haines joined Gold Coast at the end of 2017, on the back of a review that also landed Stuart Dew as head coach and Craig Cameron as the list manager.
He joined the club from the WA Football Commission, where he was football operations manager.
Prior to that, he worked in development and football operations at North Melbourne under industry veterans Donald McDonald and Geoff Walsh.
In 2013, he and Kangaroos’ list manager Cam Joyce shared the responsibility of running the football department on a caretaker basis until Walsh returned to the club after McDonald moved into another role following the drafting of his son, Luke.
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A. Sexton 6
W. Powell 27
L. Weller 14
P. Hanley 1
C. Budarick 35
HE may be the finest exponent of Australian rules in the 21st century, but there were many times in his teenage years when Gary Ablett Jr wondered if he would ever be good enough.
This is the same 36-yearold who on Saturday becomes just the 17th man to play 350 VFL/AFL games.
Wind the clock back to Saturday, March 30, 2002, when 17-year-old Ablett ran out in No. 29 to play his first game for Geelong, a club that just five years earlier had bade farewell to his father, Gary Sr.
“I can clearly remember getting a ride up to the game with teammate David Johnson thinking, ‘It’s about to happen, I’m about to play my first game of AFL football’,” Ablett said this week.
“Coming through the junior ranks I never really thought I was good enough to play at the top level. Yes, I played some good junior football and played with the Geelong Falcons but I wasn’t sure.
“Even after I was drafted, I thought, ‘Is this going to be one of those things where I’m going to be playing in the reserves for a couple of years and then I’m going to have to figure out what I’m going to do with my life?’
“So driving up I thought at least I can say that I’ve played one senior game. To fast forward 19 seasons and think I’m going into my 350th game is pretty special.”
The stats box next day in the Sunday papers showed Ablett had four kicks, four marks and four handballs
B. Ainsworth 9
B. Ellis 4
N. Anderson 15
J. Harbrow 5
J. Lukosius 13
J. Witts 28 D. Swallow 24 M. Rowell 18 C. Guthrie 29, S. Menegola J. Bowes 3, N. Holman 39, 27, G. Miers 32, Q. Narkle 19. D. MacPherson 44, T. Miller 11. Emer Z. Guthrie 39, J. Clark 6, S. P. Wright 30, Z. Smith 32, Simpson 37, J. Parsons 34. J. Sharp 37, S. Flanders 26. against Essendon at the MCG, his first touch coming when opposed to David Johnson’s brother, Mark. He handled the lift in speed but struggled against men who had been pumping weights for six or seven pre-seasons.
Ablett ran on to the ground and was mesmerised by the crowd, despite having spent plenty of time kicking balls with his brother, Nathan, at the MCG during the 1990s when his father ruled the game. Ablett’s teammate Ben Graham quickly reminded him to regain his focus. He played 11 more matches that season in which he showed promise rather than an ability to become the best.
BEING comfortable in his ability and surroundings was two-fold for Ablett. The first ingredient arrived in the unlikely locality of Shepparton during a 2003 pre-season game against Essendon.
Abletts’s coach Mark “Bomber” Thompson, who he was building a very solid relationship with, decided to play him up the ground. The results were immediate.
“After that game I knew I was good enough to play at
GEELONG assistant coach Corey Enright says Gold Coast’s on-ball division has been identified as a strength going into Saturday night’s AFL .
One focus Geelong has cast its attention on is stopping the exuberant Suns around the ball, where it is led by Matt Rowell, Hugh Greenwood, Touk Miller, Hugh Greenwood and David Swallow.
“They seem to be really sharp ,” Enright said.
“Their main weapon we’re probably going to focus on the most is in and around the football, making it really hard for them to get first hands around stoppage and around clearances and hopefully nullifying some of their really good players in there.”