Dew still the one to lead us: Suns

GOLD COAST has emphatically backed Stuart Dew as the club’s senior coach for next season, despite another lateseason slump for his young team.

Suns chief executive Mark Evans said the club had never been in doubt about honouring Dew’s contract.

While the club did contact Alastair Clarkson about a mentoring or senior leadership role, it believes Dew has enough upside to continue the club’s improvement.

The Suns showed signs of improvement in wins over Richmond and GWS, but finished the year with another 1-5 slump and failed to make finals for the 11th season in the club’s short history.

Evans said on Monday Dew would lead the young team into 2022 after four seasons in charge with a 19-1-63 win-loss record.

“Stu is our coach for next year. He is contracted through to next season and we think he has plenty of upside as a coach. He has got great relationships with our playing group and our leadership group and he sees the game really well,” Evans said.

“All the way along we have been talking about what we would add to our program to support him and all other aspects of our group. The football review is still being finalised so we will sit down and discuss it once it’s done. At our best we mixed it with the best teams in the competition, but we weren’t able to sustain that from game to game and sometimes within a game.”

Despite reports to the contrary at the weekend, the club’s assistant coaches are contracted and required, including Rhyce Shaw, Josh Drummond, Tate Kaesler and Tim Clarke.

The Suns are open to bringing in a senior assistant after contacting coaches including Michael Voss, and could add another assistant coach to their staff given a football cap lift of $250,000 to $6.45m per season.

The Suns have had talks with former GWS football boss Wayne Campbell, who is their preferred candidate to take over the head of football role from Jon Haines.

But Campbell is well entrenched in Sydney with a young family, so will have to consider his circumstances, which might make it difficult for him to take on the role.

Evans said he was thrilled former North Melbourne coach Shaw had been able to settle into the Gold Coast after he stepped down from his senior role to work on his mental health: “He has been terrific. His experience and his manner with the players has taken our program to a new level.”

The Suns are keen to resign Jack Lukosius, Izak Rankine and Ben King over the summer, but it remains to be seen whether players already locked in to 2022 will hold off on deals.

King has been adamant he will see out his contract with the Suns and will not consider trade offers.

Touk Miller won the Suns’ club champion award this week and is set to sign a longterm contract past his current deal expiring in 2022.