A lack of coaching experience in their early years had stunted the Gold Coast Suns' progress compared with fellow expansion club Greater Western Sydney, their chairman said on Saturday.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Now in their sixth year in the competition, the Suns have never made a finals series, and nearly half way through this home and away season remain well outside the top eight.
In contrast, the Giants have proven to be one of the year's great improvers, fielding a team of young players and notching up six wins and two losses after eight rounds.
"There's no way we should have had a junior coach," chairman Tony Cochrane told SEN, referring to the Suns' first senior coach Guy McKenna.
"I think one of the outstanding things they did [GWS] in Sydney was put [former Essendon coach] Kevin Sheedy up there and [former Port Adelaide coach] Mark Williams for those first couple of years."
"That really would have helped with what was just a group of young boys."
McKenna was approached for a response.
Just two months into the job, the outspoken chairman said Gold Coast had endured a particularly bad run with injuries two years in a row, with 17 of their best 22 players not fit for Saturday's game.
"We're here for the very, very, very long haul, by that I mean the next 80 to 100 years," he said. "If people take a shot at us, we'll just take a shot back, we're not going to take it lying down."
Cochrane said he was committed to keeping Rodney Eade on as senior coach next year.
"I don't think we can be casting any judgment yet of the coach, when he's got a full side out there week after week perhaps then we can have a genuine consideration of the coach," he said.
Eade had done a superb job at helping the club improve its culture, Cochrane said. "We were in a bit of a mess, to be honest, before Rodney turned up," he said.
"He's a real senior coach, he's got the long pants on and he has created a much, much stronger, better environment."
Cochrane said he been shocked by how quickly the AFL community had been to criticise his club, but they were not going anywhere.
"We're a club that's five or six years old, and to be continually analysing, is there a spot for us on the Gold Coast, and in Queensland and in the competition, it's just unhelpful," he said.
