They say a watched pot never boils. In that case, the Gold Coast Suns will be hoping they fly straight under the radar in their sophomore year in the AFL.
Nobody expects the tourist strip side to ‘boil’ straight away and become the flag contenders they are bound to be. But they’d be wanting to warm up pretty quickly, because the 2012 campaign so far has not gone according to plan.
Following a NAB Cup campaign which coach Guy McKenna admitted was well below par, the Suns provided little resistance to pre-season premiers Adelaide in a 69-point loss at home on Saturday to start the real season.
After splashing out on a high-altitude training camp in Arizona over the summer, the club has focused on improving their in-game consistency – playing all four quarters without any costly lapses of concentration or application.
Gold Coast’s structure fell to pieces during Adelaide’s relentless first term raid and failed to recover. Gary Ablett said the team acted too slow in changing things up in midfield, and by the time they did the game was over.
But it was another line in the post-match press conference that caught my attention. McKenna was searching for a positive that came out of their round one defeat, and landed on this.
“If we finished 46 disposals down last year, I reckon a 69-point loss would probably have been a 119-point loss. That’s as positive a spin I could put on that,” he said. It was a throwaway line, but I was intrigued to see if that was actually true.
He was trying to show some evidence that the Suns have improved, even if their defeat had all the hallmarks of the routine spankings they were handed by teams last year. It just made sense at the time.
McKenna meant to say 44 disposals – the Crows had 408 to his side’s 362. But if they had played the same game last season, he argued the losing margin would have been somewhere in the three-digit range because they are a better side now than they were back then.
Was he onto something? Look back to Gold Coast’s last match against Adelaide – it was at the same venue in Round 22 last year, when the Crows won by 61 points.
The disposal stats did not go along with his hypothesis. Last year, the Crows had 433 disposals to their 373 – a difference of 60 disposals, more than on this past Saturday.
So was the losing margin greater? No. In fact, it was less. That suggests that, concurring with their disappointing pre-season, the improvement is not there yet.
The Suns are good, but green. Those traits that separate premiership sides from the also-rans – teamwork, understanding, endurance, discipline – take years to develop.
That is the reason why they lost to the Crows in the manner that they did. It’s why so many of those massive defeats occurred in 2011.
There is an anticipation that they will get better this year – and they will. But to do that, the cream of the young crop – the likes of Dion Prestia, Tom Lynch, Steven May, Brandon Matera, Josh Caddy, David Swallow and more – have to stand up immediately.
The Suns are a beacon of hope in the professional sporting graveyard of the Gold Coast, which is a fickle and impatient city. Once the locals start to ignore you it’s hard to get their attention back.
To keep it, the Gold Coast must start showing the reasons why fans should continue to pay money to watch a work in progress at Metricon Stadium.
It’s coming together – just a little slower than maybe the club themselves might have anticipated.
ManInBlack
Guest
alas, for a little while in the '90s I thought North Melbourne could've found a great little niche, playing in Canberra with the Murray Kangaroos VFL side; paralleled with Fruity Allison from the ACT, Carey from Wagga, Horse from Corowa, and we'd had Shaun Smith from ACT and Fridge Roberts from Sydney. There was enough of a 'connection' there to really milk. Oh well.
The Cattery
Roar Guru
stabpass the lad from Eastlake is Josh Bruce, 196cm tall, the first to be signed from their U18s, he is also an elite rower, meaning he'd have the engine and know all about hard work (rowing as a sporting discipline is one of the very toughest). GWS also have Jacob Townsend from Leeton, but in truth, unlike the Suns, they have very few players from within 500km of their home base. Jason Tutt is the boy from Canberra playing with the dogs, he too has an interesting history, having represented Australia at junior level at softball. Adelaide have some interesting recruits: Aidan Riley from Wollongong; Sam Martyn from the Rams and Benjamin Dowdell from Nowra. Ex-eagle, Brent Staker, now with Brisbane, came from the Rams. Carlton has a couple of interesting rookies from NSW: Blake Bray from Western suburbs magpies and Matthew Lodge from Byron Bay (nicknamed the Prime Minister). The PIes have quite a few from NSW/Qld/NT, including Trent Stubbs from the Rams. Over at Happy hawthorn, there's Matthew Suckling from Wagga, Luke Breust and Will Langford (son of former champ) from the Rams. The Saints have two players on their list from Pennant HIlls, one a rookie, the other a champ, and Adam Schneider came from the Rams. The Swans have six players from the Rams, including 1st round debutant from Wagga, Harry Cunningham (let go by GWS), and co-captain Jarrad McVeigh.
The Oudsman
Guest
The common consensus amongst players and coaches is that it takes young players a minimum of 3 to 4 years to build their fitness base and core strength to a level where they can compete on a regular basis. GC is full of young players. Anyone expecting a pre season camp to have a visible effect now, or any time this season, is deluding themselves.
Republican
Guest
ps Wasn't Hamill from Canberra? Buckley also at a stretch as he did play much of his junior footy here.
Republican
Guest
stabpass You are probably right and I am not at all good with the current batch of names being an old fella, but I thought there were more.
Me too
Guest
It was a disappointing game from the suns and no obvious improvement shown. I had thought this year may well be harder for them than last season. They are likely to get thrashed a fair bit given their style of game, which is a lot more free flowing than the defensive gameplan gws have adopted. The suns went for marquee older players to boost the team, whilst gws have gone for a very experienced coaching panel. Already it appears the latter may have been the better tactic. When free agency comes in gws will have more money available to offer targets and have a great, young, disciplined core behind them. It would be very disheartening if gws actually beat the suns in the season proper, for players, fans, and coaches.
Republican
Guest
Canberra's Eastlake accounted for Sydney Uni easily and despite the latters potential and pre disposition to buy the cream players as is the case with their Union side. Many of the NSWRU clubs take great issue with Uni because they do poach on a large scale. It remains to be seen if this will be the case with the Uni NEAFL club.
stabpass
Guest
Forgot Robbie Neil, Troy Gray etc from around 15 - 20 years ago.
Ian Whitchurch
Guest
Prince Imperial, The other point is that a number of very very good players - Cameron, Shiel, Hampton - never made it into the 2010 draft ...
stabpass
Guest
The amount of ACT players in the AFL has gone backwards not forwards, cant think of many ATM, maybe 3, and i can't remember their names ...... Davis (arguably) another GWS player from Eastlake, A Western Bulldogs player ( Tutt ?), a Swans player ? Not doing very well, am I, a far cry from Shaun Smith, Hird, Allsion, Blumfield, Bolton etc, and a generation earlier, Barich, Conlan, Jezza, etc.
Ian Whitchurch
Guest
Jaceman, It was bad reporting. This is what Le Bron Jim posted over at BigFooty. "Belco ran out winners 18 17 125 defeated Uni 14 15 99 Impressive performance by Uni's were in the game right until the last few minutes. Watched the game via live streaming on the internet which was fantastic. Was handy having the commentators know each players name and a few facts about some. There was a slight hiccup with the camera for a minute or so late in the game but overall made for good viewing."
Norm
Guest
Compared to Worsfold, McKenna was a nice guy. But that's Ike comparing St Michael to Satan!
The Cattery
Roar Guru
A couple of Sydney clubs have joined the NEAFL Eastern conference, one lost to Belconnen by four goals on the weekend, which I think is a decent result.
Nathan of Perth
Guest
Seems like a shame because I'd love for Guy McKenna to do well.
Jaceman
Guest
Did Sydney Uni, the new NEAFL club get flogged by another Sydney club or was that bad reporting...
Republican
Guest
I don't know that ACT footy has necessarily gone backwards. Qld footy has certainly gone forwards and they have a far larger demographic to work with than we do. There is a healthy representation of ACT products throughout the elite AFL. I also recall Ainslie and other ACTAFL clubs struggling v the Qld ones early in the season last year, peaking well at the pointy end of the season, Ainslie playing off v the NT for the ultimate NEAF GF honours in the Alice. While the ACT have no elite AFL presence of any great substance, the code remains as strongly supported at the grass roots and in it's general following, as any of the competing codes represented here in the capital.
Prince Imperial
Guest
The reality is that some drafts are not that good especially at the top. If 2010 is any way near equivalent to 2003 for example its not automatic that GC will win a couple of premierships as many expect. The top 12 picks in 2003 were Cooney, Walker, Sylvia, Ray, McLean, Bradley, Tenace, Clarke, Trotter, Dunn, Waters and Murphy. A pretty ordinary bunch overall (with apologies to Cooney whose been affected by knee problems and Walker). Too early to call for the GCers of 2010 though. They would certainly want to be improving this year especially with Ablett at his peak.
stabpass
Guest
I would have to agree, although ACT footy may have gone backwards, or more than likely stayed still, the Cowboy Neale Ainslie ACTAFL era around the early to mid 1980's was possibly the strongest era. Sydney football has very much gone forward, but pound for pound, the ACTAFL is still probably the strongest in NSW discounting the NSW Murray and Ovens league teams. Their is some good coin still on offer in the ACT, Ainslie will start putting their hands in their very deep pockets to match these teams from here on in. QLD footy is on the up and up.
The Cattery
Roar Guru
Interesting to see that Labrador gave Ainslie a 14 goal touch up in the NEAFL (cross-conference game), quite a surprising result. I heard Labrador did well against Broadbeach the previous week. 20 years ago, I'm confident that no QAFL club would have got anywhere near Ainslie, so there has definitly been a strengthening of Queensland footy over that time.
TW
Guest
The Suns NEAFL team thrashed the Southport Sharks by 66 points on the weekend. Three senior players in that squad stood out -Stanley, McQualter and Coad. Perhaps they may get a game in the firsts this week. The fine art of managing the two squads and getting it right will be paramount for Bluey McKenna for his long term future. I thought Coad was a good player.