SO RODNEY Eade dips his toes into the coaching waters once again and this time it comes as a real surprise.

As both a champion former player and the hot assistant coach at the time, his appointment to the Sydney Swans in 1996 came as no shock. His name had featured on coaching shortlists for several years prior.

His tenure in Sydney came to a sour end midway through 2002, but given his success, which included leading the Swans to their first Grand Final in 51 years, he was always going to coach again.

After biding his time in the media (including as a columnist for this website), he joined the Western Bulldogs in 2005 and he led them to three straight preliminary finals from 2008 to 2010. He is the equal second-longest serving coach at the Bulldogs and his 11 finals wins are the most of any in club history.

Since 2012 he has been at Collingwood, first as director of coaching and for the past 12 months as director of football. Eade is super competitive, and this has long been a hallmark of his coaching, but those who have known him over the journey have noticed how content he seemed at Collingwood, happily involved in the cut and thrust of the weekly battle, but without the stress that comes with being the man in charge.

There was every reason to believe him when he said he didn't want to coach again. Settled in Melbourne, with his wife Wendy operating a thriving business of her own and with their daughter about to start her final year of school, why wouldn't he stay at Collingwood, working for a cashed-up club with plenty of resources out of a world-class facility?

In part, Eade was so cool on the idea of coaching again because of the lowly nature of the clubs to which he was linked. He had been through the rebuilding process already at the Bulldogs and didn't have the stomach to go through the process once again with, say, Melbourne, Port Adelaide or St Kilda, which had each made discreet inquiries in recent years.

Gold Coast is a different matter entirely. Where each of the aforementioned clubs resembled a clapped-out old Kingswood at the time, he might now have been handed the keys to a gleaming new Ferrari at the Suns.

If Eade's track record is anything to go by, he will have the Suns in finals contention almost immediately. The Swans finished 12th under Ron Barassi in 1995 and made that drought-breaking Grand Final appearance under Eade 12 months later against North Melbourne.

The Bulldogs finished 14th under Peter Rohde in 2004 and ninth in 2005 in Eade's first season, just half a game out of the finals. The next year they finished sixth and two years later started their streak of three straight preliminary finals appearances.

At the Suns, Eade inherits a playing list headed by Gary Ablett and bursting with top draft picks from the past few years. His forthright manner will have the Suns on notice from the start. The training wheels will be off from the first day of pre-season training.

And he will have the support of some familiar faces: football manager Marcus Ashcroft is a former teammate with the Brisbane Bears, while list manager Scott Clayton worked with Eade in a similar capacity at the Bulldogs. 

From the moment Gold Coast coaching director Malcolm Blight first knocked on Eade's door, the idea of coaching the Suns must have been intriguing. Eade played in four premierships for Hawthorn in a distinguished playing career (and it's just plain wrong that he isn't in that club's Hall of Fame), but this group of players might offer him his best chance yet of coaching a premiership side.

He would have seen first-hand how the Suns dismantled the Magpies twice in the last two years, with the win this year coming despite Ablett suffering his season-ending shoulder injury in the second quarter. 

He would likely regret it forever if he turned down the chance to coach an exceptional list of players, one that so much of the development work has already been put into, if it did one day win a premiership.

And in a nice twist, it completes his coaching journey. When he retired as a player with the Brisbane Bears in 1990 he was immediately – and much to his initial reluctance - installed as reserves coach. Yet he felt comfortable from the start toting a clipboard and within 18 months had led the Dad's Army that was the Bears reserves to the 1991 premiership out at Waverley Park.

Those Bears were based at the same Carrara locale that now hosts the Suns. 

Home for Eade would be a return for Hawthorn, but that is unlikely to ever happen. But the Suns represent a homecoming of sorts and when all factors are considered, it has the potential to be a happy one at that.