The Gold Coast Suns are entering their third season in the AFL. With all the draft and recruiting concessions they have had, this is the year the Gold Coast Suns need to consistently perform like an AFL team.
With apologies to Richmond supporters, the Suns were rarely considered a legitimate AFL team for their opening two campaigns due to an excusable differential in game experience between the Suns list and their bigger bodied opposition.
In their inaugural season, the Suns won three games. It was roughly par with what was expected.
The following year, the Suns again won three games again.
Although the team did not degenerate, they should be disappointed in their lack of improvement over a space of 12 months.
With 30 games into the majority of their highly touted youngsters, the Suns can no longer use their lack of big bodies as an excuse.
Most young players spend their first two seasons dropping in an out of the team, but the Sun’s youngsters have been gifted with accelerated development at the highest level.
Even with their draft concessions and salary cap space to poach high profile players from other clubs for their inaugural season, the Suns have underperformed in their first two.
When compared to the two teams who entered the league before them, the Suns are a distant third.
In 1995, the Fremantle Dockers won eight games in their debut season. In 1996, they won seven.
In 1997 when Port Adelaide entered the AFL, they won ten games in their debut season. In 1998 they won nine before winning their first premiership in 2004.
Although the Suns entered the AFL without a strong history in the state leagues, they were given much more assistance in the draft than Port Adelaide or Fremantle in their inaugural seasons.
If high draft picks are not consistently making the team three years after being drafted, they’re likely to finish their third campaign as a draft bust.
While every team has one of the ‘best young kids in the country,’ the Suns possess about six or seven depending on who you ask.
It’s time for one of them to stamp their authority on the AFL as an elite player.
David Swallow, Harley Bennell, Dion Prestia, Charlie Dixon, Zac Smith, Steven May and Brendan Matera have all showed glimpses of brilliance. All should be considerably more developed than their peers from the draft class of 2010.
With lesser players who have previously been making up the numbers coming through, the aforementioned players need to start making more headlines for the Suns to succeed.
Last season, the Suns were competitive in half of their games and lost by less than two goals on three occasions.
Although it did not show on their record, they certainly made enough strides last season to confidently say they will have an improved record in 2013.
Carlton showed the ultimate act of complacency in round 22 last season when a shock upset ruled the Blues out of a finals appearance.
Earlier in the season, the Blues had been instilled as premiership favourites.
In the AFL any team can win on any given day, but 2013 marks the year that the Suns are no longer the first team crossed out when weekend tips are submitted.
Coach Guy McKenna is contracted until the end of 2014 but he is also sitting in what may be the most wanted coaching role across the league.
He’s ridden the hardships of blowout losses and coach-killing turnovers which are synonymous with young players.
This is the year he can lock himself into coaching the Suns for a decade and potentially their maiden premiership in three to five years time.
In Fremantle’s third season, they won ten games.
In Port Adelaide’s third season they won 12 and made the finals.
They’ve had their excuses for the past two seasons but this is the year they need to show they’ve gained something from all their blowout losses.
It’s time to put aside the ‘development’ clichés. The benchmark for the Suns is 8-10 wins.
Floyd Calhoun
Guest
Richmond in Cairns again?!!! Oh God no!! I hope to be deep in the Peruvian jungle when that takes place!
Ian Whitchurch
Guest
Theres a solid, nuggety inside midfielder that Macca thought would never turn into anything.
Martin
Guest
Besides their win-loss record I would be looking at their average losing margin to see how committed they are. If they can reduce the number of blow-outs then you could be confident that they are progressing.
Brewski
Guest
Live footy fix for sure, the kids are what GWS are after, their parents are not GWS barrackers. And at the end of the day, once GWS is self sufficient in Sydney, Canberra will be punted, and the footy public in Canberra knows this anyway from past experience. But if GWS can raise the profile of the game in Canberra, then i am all for it. And whats more, Sydney although a couple of hours down the road is very different to Canberra.
TW
Guest
Interesting comments as I have not been to Canberra for many years. So is it likely that the 3000 that have signed up are just looking for a live footy fix as they say and GWS will provide that. It could be said that of the 3000 say about 500 would be GWS genuine supporters. How do you gauge these things other tnan asking everybody who walks through the gate. Usually Aussie Rules supporters do not switch teams -It becomes a life long thing mainly.
micka
Guest
I reckon they might win some shockers, like against Blues or Bombers. I think they should by all rights win 6. The excuses are pretty much up and they aren't really kids anymore. Do they not play Port Lions or Melbourne at their home grounds. I think they would have just as much chance of beating Port in Adelaide as at home. Same with Melbourne (who might actually be playing to win these days).
Dingo
Guest
I can only see them winning 5-6 games this year. Lions Rd3 Home? Unlikely. Port Rd4 Home. Giants Rd5 Manuka? Bulldogs Rd8 Home. Richmond Rd 16 Cairns? Melbourne Rd 20 Home. Giants Rd 23 Home.
pogo
Guest
There's an assumption here that these players should develop faster than rookies in other teams because they've been playing fulltime. Being surrounded by a bunch of other rookies in a losing team might not actually be the ideal development environment, they don't get to learn by rubbing shoulders with older players and seeing how they approach practice and prepare for the game. Certainly with GWS and the suns there's a comparative experiment under way.
Brewski
Guest
TBH, i dont think there is a great support base in Canberra for GWS, but there is a decent base of people that support football, historically in the area Australian football had always been on par with RL which would be now be the main code in the area, with rugby also having a decent base. AF is on the move up in Canberra with GWS helping significantly with a local academy. Eventually they may have a decent support base, but the established AFL teams such as Collingwood, Carlton, Essendon, Richmond and of course the Swans all having (IMO) much bigger support bases than GWS. Hopefully the local comp can get back to where it was in the 1980's, local teams had footballers the calibre of Cowboy Neale, Phil Carman, David Cloke and Syd Jackson coaching and playing in the nations capital.
TC
Guest
As a rough rule of thumb (applied to most rookies), its after the the 3rd pre-season when you can really make predictions about players.
TW
Guest
Tom C, Good point - There was a presser last week that indicated that 3,000 members had signed up in Canberra. That would leave about 7,000 from elsewhere. In 2012 GWS averaged 8430 for the Canberra matches so 3000 sounds about right if allowing 2 persons per ticket?? plus other interested fans. There is obviously a support base now for the club in the ACT. Over time the GWS figure "should" have the vast majoritory from their Sydney Zone, however they will easily pass the 2012 figure of 10,462. AND success on the field will help as well.
TomC
Roar Guru
My suspicion is that many of the Giants' members are 3-game Canberra based members.
TW
Guest
The Suns have absolutely been hammered by the Giants in the race to 10,000 members - Looks like bluey will be wearing the budgie smugglers. As of today - Giants 9906 members The Suns 8652 It was not a fair race anyhow - The Giants have huge "potential" membership wise - Their catchment areas much much bigger overall than the Suns. A Giants supporter on another forum was quoting 17,000 as the long term target set by the club.
Damo
Roar Guru
agreed. You can't compare apples and oranges. Freo set out to install a workman like team, a team of older bodied underated players to fit with the underdog persona they were trying to in body. Port Adelaide brought back as many ex-pats as they could and upgraded many mature players from the SANFL team the Magpies. The Suns and Giants are going for a dynasty that will last for years, something neither Port or Freo could do even to this day. Dynasty's are established in the AFL only by having a large core of players hitting that magical 100 game mark at the same time. Their strategy has been flawless in this respect. BUt again I do agree with you- need some wins on the board this year, especially if this Premiership in five years (or was it three?) is gonna happen.
TomC
Roar Guru
People insist on comparing the Suns with Freo and Port. Those teams had entirely different compositions in their first seasons. They were chocked up with mature players from the local leagues. Apples and oranges. But I tend to agree that this is the season when the typical excuses start to wear thin. The good news for the Suns is that they have become very competitive at Metricon, so you'd expect that if they can make a 10-15% improvement that will translate into a few more wins at home. I think six wins would be a solid performance. Possibly enough to get them out of the bottom two. On the same note, it wouldn't surprise me to see them really pushing in the NAB Cup this year. They have the luxury of playing first and third against Hawthorn and Brisbane in the round robin on Saturday. I reckon they just might win both those games and get a few people talking.
Macca
Guest
I was talking about this with a friend last week and much like the debate surrounding priority picks, high picks are not the ones that win you games, it's a team's use of their lower picks that do. So far, the Suns are yet to reveal they picked up any hidden gems so I think that says a lot about the limited capability of their recruiters.