Greater Western Sydney football manager Graeme Allan says his AFL club won’t be rushed into naming Mark Williams’ replacement, and is yet to decide whether the candidate will need to have vast coaching experience.

Former Port Adelaide premiership coach Williams walked out on GWS with a year to run on his contract after the team’s final game of their maiden AFL season.

GWS coach Kevin Sheedy conceded his reappointment for 2013 might have had a bearing on the sudden exit of Williams, the side’s senior assistant coach who was set to assume the reins from Sheedy.

It was thought the Giants would look to make a like-for-like substitution for Williams – as best they could given he’d been coaching for almost 20 years and led Port to their sole AFL premiership in 2004.

Highly-rated assistant coaches Alan Richardson and Paul Williams were considered front-runners, a claim enhanced by their recent exit from Carlton after Mick Malthouse’s appointment.

But Allan suggests there is a chance the league’s newcomers may not look outside the club to replace Williams, instead promoting one of their own assistant coaches.

Playing coach James McDonald confirmed his retirement last week and will move into GWS’s coaches box on a full-time basis next season, while old hand Luke Power’s on-field future is still up in the air but his mentoring work was lauded by many within the club this year.

“Basically we are looking at three options,” Allan said on Wednesday.

“The first is to appoint a senior assistant coach, the second is to go for a younger assistant coach and the third is to promote from within.

“We haven’t made any decision yet about the direction we want to head in but they are our options. It’s obviously an important decision and one we want to get right.”

Hawthorn assistant coaches Adam Simpson and Leon Cameron have also been linked to GWS and would seemingly fit Allan’s second option.

“Whatever way we go we think its a plum role and there will be no shortage of candidates,” Allan said.