When Gold Coast SUNS Chairman Tony Cochrane wants something, he usually gets it. Describing himself on Monday as a ‘persuasive son of a b****’, the former V8 Supercars head honcho revealed after learning of former CEO Andrew Travis’ intentions to move on from the club, he immediately honed in on the man who he wanted as his replacement.

In late January, The Age reported AFL’s Head of Football Mark Evans was considering taking a role as the next chief executive of the Hawthorn Football Club, describing his potential return to Waverley Park as ‘good news for the Hawks’ and a ‘fillip for the club’.

Given the situation that was brewing at Metricon Stadium, the story caught Cochrane’s eye. Evans had been linked to club CEO roles for nearly six months and was armed with the experience and skills needed to thrive in club land.

Evans’ resume included five years at the Melbourne Football Club as a Communications Manager and Player Welfare Manager, nine years at the Hawks as General Manager – Football Operations and Deputy Chief Executive Officer followed by four years at AFL HQ in charge of the league’s football portfolio. With a curriculum vitae of such an extensive nature, Cochrane knew who the next Chief Executive Officer of the Gold Coast SUNS was going to be and he wasn’t taking no for answer.

Even if it meant constantly ‘harassing’ Evans and his AFL colleagues day and night until he secured the signature of the one of the game’s most experienced administrators.

In the early hours of Tuesday, a night after wining and dining Evans and his wife Lynne at his Gold Coast home, Cochrane got precisely what he wanted; a handshake agreement with the next CEO of the game’s 17th franchise.

“Because I’m an avid reader of the press, I happened to read only a matter of three weeks ago that the colleague alongside me here, Mark Evans, was contemplating, at least in the press’ eyes, heading to the Hawthorn Football Club as their CEO,” Cochrane told reporters at SUNS headquarters on Tuesday morning.

“Without a moment’s hesitation, I thought well why not aim for the very top. So I jumped on the phone and started harassing Mark and then I harassed everybody in the AFL system that I humanly could from Gill down to help me work with Mark to convince Mark that this was the place to come. That this was the place that had an exciting future and indeed with the move into our new facility here, the fantastic job we’ve done in recruiting and the whole atmosphere around this club being a real fair-dinkum club that could we dream big enough and secure Mark as our new CEO?

“Well I gotta tell you, the last three or four days up until 7am this morning have been up and down as we’ve argued the points out and reached an agreement but I’m delighted to announce this morning that Mark Evans has agreed indeed to depart the AFL and to join us as soon as he humanly can to be the new face, the new CEO of the Gold Coast Football Club.

“It’s a tremendous day for our footy club, it’s a tremendous day for our Gold Coast community and we are really excited to have Mark on board.

“I feel like a kid in a candy store at the moment. This is just such a great coup to be honest for us and I think it speaks volumes to the way forward for our football club.”

While Cochrane initially reached out to Evans earlier this month to flag his interest, his advances ramped up from late last week when it became evident the vacancy in the SUNS’ CEO role was imminent.

Cochrane initially likened the task of luring Evans north to the Gold Coast the equivalent of ‘climbing Mount Everest’ but as the old adage goes, persistence pays off and it’s paid off big in this regard for the SUNS Chairman.

But it’s not a bridge that needs to be crossed, with his dream becoming a reality.

“If I’m going to be slightly honest, when I started out I thought of it as climbing Mount Everest and I wasn’t even sure I’d make it to base camp,” Cochrane said.

“But I was going to give it a go and as the last couple of days have gone on, reality started to dawn on us that I think we can convince this bloke that this is the place to come.

“I would’ve had to rapidly change direction if Mark had of given me a big fat no. But I’m not very good with the word no and luckily Mark never actually uttered the word no, he was ‘I’ll think about it’.”

With the perfect candidate now at the helm of the club he loves so dearly and Gold Coast now operating out of its recently completed $22 million training and administration facility, Cochrane believes the SUNS can become a great football club in what has proven to be a difficult landscape for AFL football.

Cochrane’s dream has always been to make Gold Coast an ‘aspirational club’ and with the ducks starting to line up, it’s hard not to stand up and take notice of a man who says plenty, but delivers time and time again.

“I want to make this a great club. I want to make this a really outstanding footy club and the opportunity to grab Mark, albeit maybe it was a bit of a dream to begin with, but the opportunity to try and lasso Mark and bring him to the Gold Coast, was just an opportunity I wasn’t prepared to pass up,” Cochrane said.

“Yes I drove him nuts, yes I drove the AFL nuts, but Mark is a really important next step in our future.

“We really believe we’re in for a very exciting five years and if we achieve our targets; the membership, the sponsors, the corporates, the community, everybody will come down, everybody will follow.”