- Video
-
Club Roar
Captured a great grassroots sporting moment? We want to see it!Content Collections
The Roar Community
- Join
- Login
There seems to be some revisionist history playing out at the Gold Coast Suns, as Rodney Eade distances himself and his team from the talk of finals.
Guy McKenna was one of the hard luck stories at the end of the 2014 season.
After Gary Ablett suffered a season-ending shoulder injury in Round 16 against Collingwood, the Suns went from being in the eight to a disappointing 12th by Round 23.
In fact, after losing Ablett the Suns only recorded one more win – against the eventual wooden spoon recipient, St Kilda.
Were it not for Ablett’s injury, many believe McKenna would still be coaching the Suns, including the man himself.
But Ablett did get injured, and the Suns’ season, which started out so bright, faded into the history books as quickly as Ablett’s chances of winning a third Brownlow Medal.
So when McKenna was sacked and Rodney Eade named as his replacement in October 2014, it was clear the Suns board wanted a coach who could take the club to the next level: finals.
Eade seemed the appropriate heir.
In his first season as coach at Sydney, in 1996, he took the Swans to their first grand final appearance in over 50 years.
At the Western Bulldogs his impact was immediate, too, with the Dogs narrowly missing the finals in his first year as coach in 2005, after finishing a miserable 14th in 2004 under the stewardship of Peter Rohde.
Eade has a knack for assessing a team’s strengths and weaknesses and creating a game plan to suit his list; he is unconventional, but has a proven record of turning clubs’ fortunes around fast.
That is why the Suns hired him.
And that is why it is all the more surprising that after one defeat ‘Rocket’ is already throwing the towel in and ruling out finals for one to two years.
The Suns’ loss to Melbourne at the weekend was disappointing, and Eade, visibly frustrated, blamed an over-reliance on Ablett as one of the reasons his team were not finals contenders this season.
But wasn’t this over-reliance on Ablett the main factor in the sacking of Guy McKenna? Can Eade really expect to use this as an excuse for the loss against the Demons, as well as future insurance in case the Suns fail to reach the finals?
It seems absurd to think that the premise for one coach’s sacking is the other’s ‘get out of jail free’ card.
What’s more, after the foundations laid by McKenna, Eade has a young, talented list that are capable of making the eight.
After four years in the AFL, there are now a group of players who have played 50-plus games and are beginning to find their stride: Zac Smith, Dion Prestia, Harley Bennell, Sam Day, Steven May and David Swallow (to name a few) are no longer little boys trying to compete against older, more seasoned bodies. They have matured into footballers.
Combined with trade acquisitions such as Gary Ablett, Nick Malceski, Jarrod Harbrow and Michael Rischitelli, the talent in the Suns’ line-up runs deep.
But that word ‘talent’, at least in Eade’s eyes, is fraught with danger. After the Suns’ loss to Melbourne, Rocket lamented that labelling a playing group as ‘talented’ was risky because hard work, not talent, was what makes teams successful.
Hard work is undoubtedly important. But when talent meets hard work, that’s when teams win premierships.
If Eade doesn’t think he is capable of getting his talent to stand up and win the contested footy, the hard ball gets, and the one percenters, then perhaps he isn’t the right man to be coaching the Suns.
But his track record proves that he is.
And if Eade made an instant improvement at Sydney and the Western Bulldogs, there is no reason his impact cannot be as immediate and profound on the Suns, particularly because the list he has is indeed talented.
It’s always better to undersell and over-deliver, but after one round as coach, Eade’s defeatist attitude is deflating at best, insipid at worst. If Gold Coast fans weren’t feeling disappointed at the end of last season, they are now.
But do they need to be? As the saying goes, a week is a long time in football. Making a judgment call on a team’s likelihood of making the finals after only one week of football seems odd.
The Suns can make the finals in 2015. Someone just needs to remind Rodney Eade.
Who’s in your ultimate team? Pick the best team and compete with other fans for daily prizes on Draftstars. For the best odds on the game try out Aussie bookmaker PlayUp. Think. Is this a bet you really want to place? Set a deposit limit.