Gold Coast Suns chairman Tony Cochrane has re-affirmed his strong support of the recently re-signed coach Stuart Dew, saying he’d “bash (the) ears off” of anyone who dared to criticise him.
After a 206-game playing career at Port Adelaide and Hawthorn, Dew joined Sydney as an assistant coach before being appointed head coach of the Suns ahead of the 2018 season.
After a difficult first season at the helm, Dew has won praise for the way his side has conducted itself this year, leading to a two-year contract extension in July.
Cochrane is “110 per cent” invested in the long-term future of Dew at the Suns, saying it was important to “go the journey” with football department members who he believes in.
“It’s not good picking the people who think are the best people and then not backing them in 110 per cent,” he said on SEN’s Pat and Heals.
“You’ve got to go the journey, it’s just a part of me I guess but I’m a 6000 pound gorilla and if you want to criticise the people that I think are the right people to do the job you better have a good critique going before I’ll bash your ears off.”
Queensland has played a crucial role in the current season, with 15 of the AFL’s 18 clubs currently based up north due to the COVID-19 situation in Victoria.
Gold Coast’s Metricon Stadium will end up hosting over 40 games in 2020, roughly the same amount as the MCG usually holds in a regular season.
Cochrane said Queensland’s role in effectively saving the AFL season proved it was a worthy investment in both the state and Gold Coast Suns more generally.
“There is nothing I’ve been surer of in my life,” he said about the success of AFL on the Gold Coast.
“The Gold Coast is a fantastic city; it’s growing all the time and heading towards a population of 700,000. We’re 10 years into a 20-year plan from the AFL Commission and we’ve achieved a lot.
“Our facility on the Gold Coast and all the sports hubs around that, that’s a half a billion-dollar investment so it’s world class. It’s as good as any other facility any AFL team has in Australia.
“We’ve done a lot of things right and over the journey we’ve got a lot of things wrong but I’ve got a belief that all good footy and sporting sides have one thing in common – they’ve got good people.
“From top to bottom we’ve got good people; we’ve built our future on a really strong junior program that we’re just starting to see the green shoots of now.
“We’re on the journey and the next three-to-five years I think will be a very exciting time to be a Suns fan.”