Hawthorn likes to call itself the family club but for 14 years, it has been Port Adelaide's operating philosophy.

John Cahill, who played 267 SANFL games for the club was lured from retirement to be the Port's s first AFL coach, replaced two years later by Mark Williams, who still sits in the chair today.

Williams is the son of Fos Williams, nine-time premiership coach with Port in the SANFL and a legend of the club in the true sense of the word. His creed, or statement, about what it means to play for Port Adelaide is the first thing you seer when you walk through the front door of the club's administrative and training facility at Port Adelaide.

So the Williams family is ingrained in the history and the culture of Port Adelaide. But perhaps enough is enough. Surely it is time for Port to cut its remaining ties with its most revered family.

Mark Williams is a big boy. He will quickly get over being rejected by his beloved football club and will move on his next calling. It is the call that should have been made at the end of last season, but both the club and coach were unwilling to make the hard call. Port should have thanked Williams for 11 fabulous years, which included a premiership, and wished him well.

Williams should have seen that after two straight years of missing the finals, and a major rebuild needed, that a fresh voice was needed in the coaches box.

Some more balls from both parties and Williams would have been spared the indignity of telling a media scrum on the weekend that barring a premiership win, the completion of his contract at the end of next season would mark the end of his time as coach.

Usually a cocksure figure, Williams looked crushed and deflated as he made the admission and it leaves his club in an awkward state - because it certainly won't be winning a flag this year or next - of treading water for the next season and a half.

In the AFL either your premiership window is ajar or you are in rebuilding mode, but as long as Williams is at the helm and seemingly counting down to the end of next year, Port fits into neither camp.

Williams is an obvious fit to join Kevin Sheedy at Greater Western Sydney. The pair have history, with Williams working beneath Sheedy at Essendon for a season and a half before he returned to Port to work under Cahill.

We also know that the cash-strapped Power doesn't have the money to pay the second year of Williams' contract if it was to release him from his duties at the end of 2010.

So step in the AFL. GWS, like Gold Coast before it, seems to have all the cash it needs to get itself up and running and most importantly, put the right people in place. The likes of Sheedy, Gubby Allan, Tom Harley and Dale Holmes presumably haven't come cheap.

Williams would likely walk from Port at the end of the season if he had something on the table to go to. There would no shortage of media suitors, but he is too good a coach to be sitting in a TV booth somewhere (as brilliant as he would be at that caper) and as much as we love Sheedy, the great man is going to need some experienced minds around him.

So get Williams to GWS a year early. Make Israel Folau his special project and to work and allow Port to get on with its future. And while we're sure, knowing Port, that Greg Phillips, Russell Ebert, Craig Bradley and Bruce Abernethy will probably be on the coaching short list, we'd like to see them look beyond Alberton Oval for a successor. And probably, outside South Australia as well.