Guy McKenna failing at Gold Coast Suns

Bayman, You are right there is no doubt that the suns have a much younger list than the other start up clubs in the past,hence why i feel a strong experienced coach is needed.History shows eagles,crows,lions and hopefully the dockers(not so much port but they are always a bit different) improved and in the first 3 cases achieved premierships with the right man in charge. Thats why i proposed Paul Roos,and on reflection he could take maybe ,at a stab jude bolton with him,Roosy could do 3 years and then hand over creating a good culture. We can all use a single stat to prove a point but i had a look at tackles for the season the suns have laid 1098,the next nearest GWS with 1179,who are only 15 behind the eagles and the crows.who are the top 2, dockers no surprise,and of course the swans.Tackling doesn't make a club but it sure helps you be competitive,and i'm not sure the youngsters are learning to graft as much as they could. Finally i think in general people underestimate how tough the gold coast market is ,economically its struggling and has failed ventures from NRL,Basketball,soccer and even the bears,the suns must get there culture right otherwise the talent may not turn into the success they think.

While the heat is on Mckenna the recruiters at the Suns IMO should be put under more scrutiny.Obviously i am not referring to the kids they have recruited some of them will be 10 yr Afl players but the experienced players Ablett aside have been a flop.Fraser , Brown, Krakouer( now departed), Bock (too much time on the sidelines) ,Brennan and McQualter wont worry the ALL-Australian selectors too much but are paid at that rate.Hudson who the lions recruited after he retired at the Bulldogs as a native Queenslander could of been looked . Roger Merrett and Alistair Lynch were critical in developing the bears and lions respectively adding onfield presence to there leadership qualities.Who is there that makes the Suns walk taller ? As Jack Dyer used to say a good big man will a;ways beat a good small man but the recruiters didn't get one to lead the way.

Dermie, As Christo (above) has hinted the main problem with the Suns - and GWS - is the youth and inexperience of most of the playing list. While they did sign a few old hands to help out the majority of the team were virtual novices. When the WCE, Crows, Port Adelaide entered the AFL they did so on the back of mature, experienced bodies from the WAFL and the SANFL. It highlighted the actual strength of those local competitions at that time. The Crows, for example, belted Hawthorn in their first ever AFL game - Hawks were premiers later that year - but as the year went on even the harder Crow bodies found the going tough. It is not surprising that the Suns and GWS have struggled as the year has gone on. The AFL is just plain hard work. That said, by the end of next year the Suns should have a core of players with fifty odd games behind them, a couple of pre-seasons and the excuses are going to be harder to find given the leg-up they got with talent. Likewise GWS who, I suspect, may not take quite so long to start winning. I say this only because I had the impression that GWS have gone for young guys who are seriously hard at it and a bit more physical than their Suns counterparts. That physicality will take its toll in the first couple of years because their bodies, while more advanced than most Suns, are still young. Of course, whether McKenna is a good coach or not remains to be seen. He is protected somewhat at the moment by the youth and inexperience of his team. That and the fact that everyone has expected that the first couple of years will be massive learning curve. That expectation will diminish in the next year or two as those players accumulate games and experience. Then we'll really know a bit more about Guy McKenna. The GWS, of course, went down a different path. Highly experienced coaches who know the drill and know what's required. It will be interesting to see how these two teams fare in the next year or two. From memory, the old Brisbane Bears were different again. They were full of experienced players from the lists of the existing VFL teams. I think each club was expected to make some players available to the Bears. As a result they got handed a lot of cast-offs. I seem to remember that Carlton made available to Brisbane a player who was holidaying overseas and had announced his retirement. Thank you, Blues, very helpful. GWS assistant coach, Mark Williams, also joined the Bears after a dispute with Collingwood. So while they did not have a great team they did have a team of considerable VFL experience and their first captain, Mark Mickan, was an experienced SANFL player and state representative. The Suns and GWS, by comparison with those other startup teams are just kids.

Sorry Mr postman. I will go blog somewhere else.

It was a post, not a blog. And yes you are uncool.

The Cattery is in Geelong. I think you are lost. Your blog is somewhere else. But don't worry its where all the cool people are. Only us uncool QLD AFL people here.

Off on a tangent but whatever happened to The Cattery?

Watch for around 10 wins next year from the Suns, it really is amazing how close a team can be to turning a corner , without really anyone seeing it. Suddenly it just clicks into place. That is my prediction, Bluey is a good coach.

There are question marks as to whether bringing in a lot of talented juniors at the one club at the same time will result in future success. The blend of youth and experience is too far skewed to youth, resulting in the juniors not being mentored sufficiently at the start, thus stifling their development. Plus it can't be fun for anyone knowing the club will lose almost every week due to inexperience. Crowds won't enjoy losing all the time and won't turn up in numbers until they start winning, especially in rugby league heartland. Perhaps the bulk of the side should have included more experienced players, topped up by a small number of talented juniors, so they could enjoy more wins at the outset and build some camaraderie and club culture from victories.

I'm not going to bother looking up stats so perhaps you could give us a further comparison of how those earlier clubs fared in their next few years after coaches changed etc ? Did changing staff result in improvement ? Were there new players recruited etc ? I took it that the new clubs were created with a long term view & the staff were employed with that in mind to give some stability & a real chance to grow rather than be subjected to the normal pressure of results etc that is part of AFL footy. I am a Carlton fan living in Far North QLD & have adopted the Suns as my second team until we get an AFL club in Cairns ( obviously quite a way down the track) so I would like to see them do well but appreciate it will take time to build the club. I'd hate to see a good coach sacked on the basis of just results. If the young players are not developing or there are tactical or style problems then that can't be let go, but if the club is developed for the long term lets actually give it a long term before deciding.

[Sigh...] Again we have someone with the attention span of about five minutes. The AFL has repeatedly said that they view the Suns (and the Giants for that matter) as long term investments. Both the new teams are made up of very young and inexperienced players - they will take time to mature in both a physical sense, and also in a football experience sense. If there are no signs of improvement by the end of the third season, then I would start to have a few concerns, but we're not there yet. And in the interests of consistency, I presume you're going to write the same article about Sheedy and Williams at the Giants in twelve months? Because I can assure you the Giants won't be winning too many games in their second year either.

An indication of the current mentality of the GC 'No Brains Trust' is the fact that they have signed up so many useless flog players and coaches on high dollars and extended years i.e. Brennan, Brown, Rischitelli, Coad, Ashcroft, Mckenna etc Plus the GC is run by a lawyer without a clue about the Club, this was proven when interviewed on Fox Footy, he could only refer to his under age players and of course Ablett and Rischitelli . Funny how one important player he did not mention was dumped from the side after a 22 possession game and the other omission by the lawyer was a player who currently commands an average of 24 plus possessions.Oh yeh! We have to keep Hunt and Ablett in contract at a cost of millions, guess what? They are not worth it! Well why don't we go and buy another destined to fail at about 1.6 million, go Tippett, should be good for morale, especially the unmentioned, uncontracted and unloved sacraficial guns who have held this out fit together, they will be real glad.

This is a legitimate article. If the Suns' on-field performance has not improved by this time next year, Bluey will be gone. You would love Malthouse to get the GC blank canvass with all its resources...won't happen, but it'd be great.

What's with southeast Queensland AFL clubs keeping coaches with losing records? The lack of improvement by the Suns, in terms of their worse record this season, demands investigation, as the author of this article argues. Many of us AFL fans in Queensland would like to support the Suns, but are now put off by the lack of improvement. The Suns organisation, its marketing communications, its engagement with its fans, the team colours, logo, and song are all good -- however, the total package is spoiled by the very poor on field performance. Hey, doesn't the same logic, multi-year poor on field performance, raise questions about Michael Voss? Many Lions fans were never convinced by the club or Voss that he was the right man for the job.