MARK Evans understands the scepticism around Gold Coast.

The Suns chief executive, formerly the boss of football at the AFL and a key cog in Hawthorn's premiership success, hears the critics and the negativity around his club's long-term health and feasibility.

They are in their eighth season and are set for a bottom-three finish this year. They haven't made the finals yet and could lose their co-captain Tom Lynch to one of the Victorian powerhouses chasing the key forward.

Does Evans see where the doubters are coming from?

"Yeah, of course you can. Because other than perhaps a rise in 2014 when it looked to be on track, it hasn't been," Evans told AFL.com.au this week.

"But after making some pretty significant changes last year, I felt we had to have a deeper connection inside of our club as to what we're about. Stuart Dew is a big part of that."

Dew replacing Rodney Eade as coach wasn't the only significant move of the off-season in high places at the Suns. Jon Haines took over as football manager after Marcus Ashcroft's stint in the role, while Craig Cameron took on the position of list manager after the Suns' inaugural head recruiter Scott Clayton departed.

There are set to be further changes at the club at the end of this season in the coaching and strength and conditioning departments.

Dew has brought with him an eye for detail and positivity that has resonated with the players but not brought on wins, with the Suns having sung their song only three times this year, and not since round five.

As Evans and his administration team work hard off the field to engage more support for the fledgling club, they know that they can only take that so far without the team producing results.

"It can be successful to a point. It can grow football to a point, but we all know the massive spike that comes from success in a new market," he said.

"We will need to do both over time – do far more work inside of the community to bring them to the game but then give them the on-field product that will excite them to become more loyal, more avid and bring more people."

The Suns' gruelling travel schedule in the first 10 rounds of the season – they played in Cairns, Melbourne, Perth (twice), Brisbane (twice), Adelaide, Ballarat and China before their first home game in round 11 due to the Commonwealth Games – created what the Suns detected as a "fatigue element" within the club.

"We were hoping for a spike once we got out of the travel regime and there has been a mental spike that came out of that, but it didn't result in wins," Evans said.

Evans, who was parachuted into the position at the start of the 2017 season, has seen gains in the cut-through of the Suns in his time there, particularly in the AFL Women's program. Through that he has seen a new market of engaged Suns fans emerge, but he says it shouldn't be overlooked how young the club is.

"We're only eight years into the frontier and we look at Sydney, and it might be a 20-to-25-year program to feel like it's strongly cemented," he said.

Most of all, the thing that has dawned on Evans more since he arrived in Queensland has been that every club needs to adjust to its surroundings. What he has seen work in Melbourne may not fit the Gold Coast landscape. What the Swans have done over a long period of time might not work exactly the same way in the sunshine state.

"[I'm] far more acutely aware of the challenge and we accept that's in front of us. You can't just think you're going to pick up a Melbourne-based or South Australian club and replicate that here," he said.

"There are parts you can, but there are other unique challenges that are involved here. Finding that will be the cleverest thing I can do."