Just days away from his first assignment as Gold Coast SUNS senior coach, Stuart Dew says the club environment is the best it’s been since he came on board last October.
Dew will coach the club’s AFLX side on Saturday and has noticed excitement levels around the club slowly building as round one draws closer.
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“When there’s plenty of enthusiasm, you know,” Dew told Perth radio station 6PR on Tuesday.
“I think they’re pretty hungry to be led and very compliant, so you know some of those things are hard to teach.
“What they are is quite hungry to be better and I think they’re ready to improve the club up the ladder so we just need to create the right environment and that comes through fruition.”
Dew has already been impressed by the playing group, but he had particular high praise for new recruit Lachie Weller.
“Lachie’s a pro, we met him in draft week and I said to Mark Evans when we had dinner with him, it’s not often you walk away from a chat with a 21-year-old really impressed with how mature he is,” Dew said.
“He’s got a real clear picture of what he wants to get out of his footy and where he wants his life to go so in terms of bringing him in it was a no brainer for us.
“He wanted to come to the footy club and we wanted to embrace him and he’s a player there that the club won’t have to worry about in 10 years because he’ll be doing the right thing and pushing the club onwards.”
With only 37 days until the SUNS season opener kicks off in Cairns, Dew is still getting a grasp on who would make up his best 22.
The new coach has already expressed his desire to lead the club towards finals football, but hasn’t put any added pressure on himself by naming a timeframe.
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“I think we just want improvement, for every team the finals are so far away even for the teams that finish top 4 as you saw with the Bulldogs last year if you look too far ahead you tend not to get there,” he said.
“We need to get better on all sides of the footy - offense, defense and even around stoppages… so we’re working on that a fair bit but obviously we want to defend better which will give us a better opportunity to attack.
“I think on a whole we’re just looking for some more consistency from the whole group and driving those standards and I think that’ll translate on to the field for a more consistent performance.”
