Inside the sacking of a coach: Why Stuart Dew’s exit was so messy

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The Gold Coast board meeting at which the decision to sack Stuart Dew as coach was made had not been scheduled when club CEO Mark Evans told reporters five days earlier they were backing their man.

That emergency meeting was lively, according to people not authorised to discuss board matters. Directors discussed not whether Dew should continue as coach, but whether the move on Dew should be made immediately or whether they should let the season play out before making the call.

The latter had been the preferred scenario but it became clear on Monday this was not going to be possible as the board weighed the interests of staff, club, players and a coach dealing with all sorts of pressure in an environment that must have suddenly felt very tense.

But the call was not going to play out well for the club in the public arena given Evans had appeared at the coach’s weekly media conference the previous week and supported the hapless Dew.

The decision to back Dew publicly last week was made amid a furore created by The Age and Channel Nine’s Caroline Wilson’s Footy Classified report on July 3 that the coach would be removed, and the subsequent tense discussions held between key people at the club the following day as Dew felt initially that someone within the group must have told her of his impending demise.

Journalists had been all over the Suns and those close to the club after their disastrous loss to Collingwood in front of a full house on July 1, but none had managed to gather the information she had that saw her report with certainty not long after returning from a holiday that Dew’s time was up.

Gold Coast Suns coach Stuart Dew walks off with the playing group in what became his last match as Suns coach.Credit: AFL Photos

In his sixth year and without a finals’ appearance, his time was clearly running out (only St Kilda’s Alan Richardson (2014-19) and Fitzroy’s Bill Stephen (1965-70) had lasted as long as Dew without a finals’ appearance.

But with a contract lasting until 2024 and the Suns still, mathematically at least, a finals chance in 2023, the message from the club before and after Wilson’s report was that all eyes were focused on preparing for Port Adelaide.

Some commentators avoided backing her report wholeheartedly and Dew hit back in an interview in the Herald Sun the next day. But Wilson makes countless phone calls when chasing such stories, stood firm.

In her column for the Saturday Age, and again on Footy Classified on Monday, Wilson said nothing had changed her view that Dew’s relationships with senior people at the Suns had soured.

“I think there has been a loss of faith to a degree in Stuart Dew from more senior people at the club than I had realised, and a bit vice versa,” she said.

Asked about reports of a “rat in the ranks at the Suns”, mentioned in Herald Sun chief football writer Mark Robinson’s Monday column, Wilson said this was a simplistic view.

“I spoke to quite a few people before I reported what I did on Footy Classified, and if there was detail I gave that has been spread back to one person that would be a really inaccurate assessment because it came from all over.

“I don’t have a vendetta against Stuart Dew and I’m sorry that he’s clearly very upset and I don’t blame him but that’s the job, it’s tough, senior coaching is tough.”

So with Dew’s appearance before the media compulsory on Wednesday the fateful decision was made for Evans to join him rather than leave him isolated to face the inevitable questions about his future alone.

Evans, an experienced media performer after stints at Hawthorn and the AFL role, called for stability but then went a step further with a comment that would have left Dew feeling he had time to rectify the situation.

“I’ve said time and time again, Stuey’s our coach, contracted for this year and next year,” said Evans. “(If he) does a good job, he’ll be contracted well into the future.”

Despite those comments, Wilson continued to report with conviction that Dew’s fate had already been decided. It was only a matter of time before it was enacted.

Gold Coast Suns chairman Bob East and CEO Mark Evans face the media to announce that Stuart Dew had been sacked as coach.Credit: Getty Images

Interim coach Steven King said on Thursday speculation about Dew’s future was not unusual for the football department and it had not, up to that point at least, affected performance.

“Certainly that noise has been around unfortunately for a while but we were still just heads down doing our jobs trying to prepare our players to win every game of footy,” King said.

Reports of leaks would create an ugly atmosphere for any club, particularly when an ongoing assessment of the coach is pointing towards him being dismissed before the end of his contract, if not before the end of the year. The tension that now existed was also forcing a decision.

Suns chairman Bob East is described by people who know him as a conservative business person despite his haircut, and he is not one to make change on a whim. He wanted to assess the evidence before making a call.

That evidence had begun to mount from the moment the Suns slumped to third last on the ladder after five rounds.

At that time Dew had led them to victory just four times in 12 attempts since signing a two-year extension in July 2022 with the loss to Fremantle in a close game in Adelaide during Gather Round when they conceded four of the last five goals to squander a 23-point lead likely to consign them to another year outside the eight.

Having gone into the season needing to make finals – a reality anyone with a keen eye for football history, football politics and the coaching landscape – this put Dew on thin ice.

And Wilson has a keener eye on those realities than anyone and a contact book to match having already written in this masthead on April 1 that Dew had two months to prove he was the right man to take the club forward.

Matt Rowell of the Suns is one of the game’s most promising talentsCredit: AFL Photos

Comments News Corp boss Michael Miller made about the Gold Coast at the SportNXT conference in March had caught her eye and should have made it obvious there were many eyes on Dew.

“The concern I have around the Giants and Suns; they are going backwards. That is something we don’t know if it is being addressed,” Miller said.

The matter was being addressed by a Suns football subcommittee led by former Virgin executive Paul Scurrah, who departed the club’s board on Wednesday citing travel after flagging his exit at the start of the year, and football boss in Wayne Campbell.

East, chair of the Mantra Group, also wanted to have returned from Vietnam before any big calls, which he did after Suns lost to Port Adelaide in round 17.

By that stage Gold Coast were one win, 16 percent and two spots behind where they had been at the corresponding round in 2022.

He chaired the meeting and a decision was made based, in East’s words, on “a process driven by evidence and a systematic process of evaluating on what we need for this club. It is crystal clear to us that this decision was a necessary decision.”

Wilson had been on the money.

On Monday night Evans visited Dew at home to break the bad news, knowing that the club’s wish that Dew would be the man to lead them into the finals would not be fulfilled and that, as CEO, his actions over the previous week in how Dew’s exit was handled would be criticised even if the chair backed him publicly.

East appeared in a club video designed to appease the members on Thursday, with a comment, when read in light of Miller’s comments about the Suns in March, that was interesting.

“I am pleased at one level that this shows a commitment in this club that we are very serious about making finals. We are very serious about progressing this club in a hyper-competitive market. We have 17 other clubs out there that are making tough decisions and all going for the same goal.” East said.

The tough decision which Wilson accurately forecast appears likely to lead the club to appointing Richmond coach Damien Hardwick who must be glad to be overseas right now.

This was, after all, another ugly exit by a well-liked coach from a club starved of finals success followed recent unedifying coaching departures of Essendon’s Ben Rutten, St Kilda’s Brett Ratten and Carlton’s David Teague (all assistants at other clubs now). Dew, who is yet to comment since the decision, has gone away on a well-deserved break.

What effect the chapter has on the Suns’ season is unclear and what effect it has on the reputation of the club will be debated until a new coach can take advantage of the talent and lead it to the finals success both the club and the AFL so desperately wants.

Dew’s replacement won’t be the interim coach, but King summed up the harsh reality well as he prepared the team to play St Kilda who made the most brutal of decisions themselves last November.

“This is not an industry that goes to script. It is not kind to everyone all the time, and you don’t always get what you deserve,” King said. “As brutal as it is in this industry, no one waits for you.”

The Age attempted to contact Dew on Thursday.

With Nick Wright

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