Guy McKenna admits he is the frontrunner now to become the first AFL coach of the new Gold Coast club after being appointed the new club's development coach on Wednesday.
The former West Coast captain and Collingwood assistant coach for the past five years has only been given a two year deal - meaning he will coach the new club in 2009 and 2010 but is not guaranteed to still be in charge in 2011 when the club joins the AFL.
The new club - at the moment known as GC17 - will begin its life next year in Victoria's TAC Cup under 18 competition before moving to the VFL in 2010, ahead of becoming the league's 17th club the following year.
Already Brisbane's triple premiership winning captain Michael Voss had knocked back a three year offer to coach the club - because it only included the first year of the club's AFL existence - but McKenna had no hesitation agreeing to only a two year deal.
"It was clearly stipulated it was a two year offer," McKenna said on Wednesday.
"It was the development coaching role but in all of that there was an opportunity that potentially if you do your job right, there is a chance you will be the senior coach (in 2011)."
"I am pretty confident I will do a fantastic job and I have got two and a half years to get it right."
And GC 17 chairman John Witheriff said the job of guiding the new club into the AFL in 2011 was now McKenna's to lose.
"I would be very disappointed if Guy isn't standing there on the sidelines waving that very first team off into the AFL competition," he said.
Witheriff said McKenna's playing and coaching record made him the club's top choice to begin moulding the list.
"Guy's playing credentials are impeccable, he is one of the all time greats of AFL football and he is highly experienced at the top level, first as a duel premiership player with West Coast in 1992 and 1994, then as an understudy to veteran coach Mick Malthouse."
However Voss told Channel Ten he was surprised the new club had decided to go for a Western Australian at the expense of a Queensland candidate such as his former Brisbane teammates Brad Scott and Craig McRae, who are currently assistant coaches at Collingwood and Richmond respectively.
"He (McKenna) is a relative unknown in Queensland," Voss said.
"That is why I thought Brad Scott and Craig McRae would have an edge given the fact of their allegiance with the Lions (and Queensland) but they have decided to go a completely different way."
McKenna's former premiership teammate and current West Coast Eagles coach John Worsfold was happy for his former premiership team-mate and believes he will excel with the opportunity.
"I think he'll do very well. He's go a lot of experience under his belt now and I know he's passionate about it, passionate about coaching and very exited about the opportunities there for him," said Worsfold.
"I'm rapt for him and I'm sure he'll do very well."
Malthouse meanwhile said McKenna, who played the bulk of his 267 game career under Malthouse at the Eagles before becoming his assistant coach in 2004, was the ideal man to take on the job of building the new Gold Coast playing list.
"While he is a big loss