SOLOMON TAKES REINS AT TIGERS

FORMER AFL hardman Dean Solomon has emerged from the football wilderness two years after leaving the Gold Coast Suns.

Solomon, a former assistant coach for the Suns, will make his senior coaching return with the Tweed Coast Tigers for the 2023 season.

The move is a massive gain for the northern NSW club, which finished winless in the 2022 QFA Div 2 season.

Solomon (pictured) will lead the senior men's side in its comeback season, but will also oversee the entire football program including juniors and women‘s.

Solomon said the move was the perfect opportunity to re-enter the football world after he was let go by the Suns in 2020 amid cost cuts.

The axing was a shock to the football world with two years left on his contract and three games as interim senior coach under his belt.

But the Suns’ loss is Tweed’s gain as the Tigers set their sights on an eventual QAFL berth.

“To be able to coach my own team, a team that’s in my own community where I’ve forged a lot of relationships, it’s so important,” Solomon said. “It’s going to be a great experience for me, I think it’ll be really nice to meet the group, adapt, learn how they operate, and I’ll learn to adapt as well to the level I’m coaching at.

“I’ve had a year and a half out of the game in the AFL system, I was lucky enough to do three months of assistant coaching with the Giants at the back end of this year with Mark Mcveigh as the interim coach.

“I obviously really enjoyed that and footy’s been in my blood since I was born, so to re-enter at a different level and a new capacity is a really nice fit.”

Solomon will have a major task on his hands as he leads a QFA Div 2 side that finished wooden spooners, but said he was confident in the talent he can muster from across the region.

“When you think about AFL, northern NSW is an area that’s rugby dominated.” he said. “But clubs like Tweed Coast, in the grassroots level there’s a really good group of kids coming through who want to be the best they can be.”

While Solomon has plans to take the club as far as he can, the 209-game AFL player said he wasn’t ruling out a return to coaching at the highest level.

“I won’t ever say never,” he said. “In the long term that could arise again, but in the short term I just know I’ve got a really firm focus on my business and the Tweed Coast Tigers. In five or 10 years time that opportunity might arise again.”

Solomon has been living in Kingscliff for eight years and opened his own gym, The Gym at Salt, in 2020 with Gold Coast assistant Matt Kennedy. He plans to use his facilities in collaboration with Tweed’s regular training.

“A lot of our members at the gym are already from the Tweed Coast Tigers and we’re fortunate enough to have built those relationships over the past two years,” Solomon said.

Tigers president Andrew Ryan said the news was “unbelievable”.

“We’re absolutely stoked, we couldn’t have wished for anything better,” Ryan said.