ASSEMBLING the right coaching panel is hard enough at an established club, let alone in our case when you're starting from scratch in a non-football town.
You're obviously trying to find midfield, defence, forward and development coaches, but it's far more than that.
It's a cocktail that's hard to get the right mix for.
We wanted experience and youth. We wanted coaches who had experienced success and others that had helped build from the ground up. We wanted voices that would challenge mine in match committee. And the one thing I really wanted was passion.
Our panel was particularly difficult to assemble. The year before we joined the AFL, we played in the VFL and had three coaches looking after 60 players.
Fortunately we had people of the calibre of Ken Hinkley, Shaun Hart and Marcus Ashcroft, who weren’t afraid of hard work.
We were starting as the 17th side in the competition so there wasn't a great attraction for any assistant coach to come up here and work.
Shaun and Marcus were based here in Queensland and were with us for our TAC Cup year and when Kenny joined us, it was probably the first time others saw the Suns as an option for perspective coaches.
People may have been surprised that he stepped outside the AFL landscape but it was the opportunity to work with a young group that he found appealing.
My sell to the assistant coaches was that – you're going to be part of growing a young talented list into a hard, professional side and you want to be in there with a blank canvas.
If you're part of that, your stocks rise. Whether it's right or wrong, that's clearly an AFL perception.
With the game changing so quickly, I thought it was important to have some players just out of the game as coaches.
We got Shane O'Bree who I'd worked with at Collingwood and Dean Solomon because of his history of being a hard, tough uncompromising player with great defensive know-how.
We wanted to stand for being a hard, aggressive side and Solly played that way – and what I've seen so far he coaches that way.
We got Andy Lovell to join Shaun Hart as the development coaches and they've been a bit like the duck on the pond; they've had to pedal hard underneath water because we've had the biggest list, apart from GWS.
People often ask how much weight coming from a successful club carries when you're selecting a coaching panel.
The short answer is, a small amount. Sometimes blokes have done it tough in clubs where they've struggled for success, but you've actually seen growth. You've got to look at that.
Sometimes a coach in a good organisation that is successful can also be lazy because, let's be honest, the players are doing 60 per cent of it and you've just got to turn up and manage the drills.
Having a balance is the best.
With six coaches to take care of 48 players, it wasn't a great ratio in our first two years.
Most coaches can teach a bit of everything, but I really wanted to find that bit of passion in everyone.
We can't all be great kicking coaches, you need someone to teach tackling, spoiling and break down the technical skills.
You need to have a skill set for those coaches. The coach has to have that passion so you know they'll just grab players to teach them. They drive that.
We have to know we're covered in the 10-15 little technical areas and that they're passionate about it.
We went from a ratio of one coach to 20 players in the VFL to one to eight in the AFL, but we still needed to get it better.
When you have one to eight, blokes will slip through the cracks. There's an hour, there's 100 kicks, 100 handballs, 100 tackles a bloke won't get. At another club that has 10, 11, 12 coaches, you know they'll get coached in that area. You don't mean to miss them, you just don't have the time.
So we went about adding to that and even though Kenny got his much-deserved start with Port, we were able to bring in Matty Primus and Bomber (Mark) Riley as assistants, and Ben Matthews and Andrew Johnston into development roles.
Ben came from an elite organisation, the Swans, and brought a bit of everything from on-field with how professional they have to be, to the off-field, the culture.
Now the boys that miss out on the seniors get the same attention in the reserves.
They're now getting coached and developed like an AFL side because now when they go back to the seconds they have four or five coaches.
Another important ingredient, I believe, is having a coach or two who aspires to get a senior job.
You know they're going to challenge you.
Having said that, I couldn't say whether any of our guys aspire to be a senior coach.
At match committee you can pick a young coach and a senior coach. Matty Primus and Bomber Riley walk in for the first time and you can't shut them up – that's what they're used to. Dean Solomon, Shane O'Bree, Andy Lovell, they are more measured or circumspect.
Challenging each other has to be done in the right manner, but that's what you promote.
We all win together, we all lose together.
