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Suns hungry for AFL redemption

15th August, 2011
4

Some home truths from captain Gary Ablett have steeled the Gold Coast Suns ahead of a game they hope will mark their first AFL win at home.

Coach Guy McKenna took a public shot at his charges after their 62-point last round loss to arch rivals Brisbane Lions, slamming them for “no effort”.

If that wasn’t enough, forward Danny Stanley revealed on Monday that skipper Gary Ablett also had a private word in the dressing room as the dust settled.

Stanley said Ablett’s address had the Suns (16th; 3-16 record) hungry for redemption against 14th-placed Adelaide (6-13) at Carrara on Saturday.

“Gaz had a bit of a chat with us after the game and we agreed that that performance just wasn’t acceptable – we need to redeem ourselves this week,” he said.

“He didn’t want to dwell too much on it (loss), but he said we should learn a lot from the game and the fact that we needed to take the game on a bit more rather than play it safe.

“The main one (complaint) was that we didn’t play our brand of footy.

“We didn’t really get going at any stage. We needed to move the ball a bit quicker and use our speed.”

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The heavy defeat came after successive losses to powerhouses Collingwood, St Kilda and Geelong.

But Stanley was offering no excuses.

“We’ve played a few big name teams in Collingwood, St Kilda and Geelong and the performances we put up against them were better than the one we dished up on Saturday night,” he said.

“Each week we are looking to improve, that’s been one of the messages drilled home to us by the coach.

“Being in our first season we need to take some steps forward but there was a bit of a step back on Saturday night.”

Stanley hinted that a number of team changes would be made against the Crows, with code-hopper Karmichael Hunt expected to return.

After nine attempts to date, the Suns were hopeful of breaking their duck at home.

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“We’d love to get a win at home in front of the home crowd,” Stanley said.

“We just have to change the way we went about it last week and go out with some real enthusiasm and take the game on – they’re playing some good footy and we have to go out there and match them.”

The Crows have downed Port Adelaide and the Lions and narrowly lost to Geelong since Mark Bickley took over as coach from Neil Craig.

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