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When the Gold Coast Suns announced their vision earlier this year to have 20,000 members and to play in a grand final within the next three years, a lot of people raised their eyebrows.
One of those in particular was former Hawthorn president Jeff Kennett, who spoke earlier this year at a Suns luncheon on the Gold Coast and had this to say:
“You always have to have goals just beyond your reach…. There’s no point implementing goals that are easily achievable.
“The goal of reaching 20,000 members and a premiership in the next three years is a big ask – yet it’s certainly not impossible.”
Those words should ring in the ears of many and certainly the warning signs are there for all the other clubs to see.
Other clubs should start to hear the footsteps that the Gold Coast Suns are making toward achieving their goals.
The current membership tally of the Gold Coast club sits at 12,260, so they are well on track to gaining more support throughout the Queensland community, especially as they are forming an important grassroots partnership with the Southport Sharks.
And as the Gold Coast Suns onfield success starts to become more apparent, more supporters are likely to jump on board as members. The last two games the Gold Coast has played should provide great encouragement for their supporters as they more then matched it with two of the benchmark teams in the competition.
Hawthorn and Geelong have been big players in the past few seasons winning four flags between them out of the last six grand finals (the other two were won by Sydney and Collingwood) and appearing in five of the last six grand finals.
The scoreboard on Saturday didn’t reflect how well the Suns youngsters played; they more than matched a Geelong team that has arguably been the best all year.
They made more tackles then Geelong (68-59) and won the hitouts (40-31). This is important as the Gold Coast didn’t have their number one choice ruckman Zac Smith, who has been sidelined by injury.
Another stat is the Gold Coast players outside of Gary Ablett who are starting to win the ball. Dion Prestia had 29 disposals, Stanley 25, first year player O’Meara had 23, with eight other players having 15 or more touches for the game.
They have more wins than they had for the entire season of 2012, so the Suns are improving at a much faster rate then anyone could have expected them too.
Add too the fact that next season the Suns gain highly talented youngster Jack Martin, who they picked up in the mini draft, and the Suns are more then capable of causing some headaches within the next few years.
Whilst their plan may have been ambitious it seems to have played dividends.
With calls to sack Guy McKenna early in his coaching career, it appears evident that his gameplan has been drilled into the Gold Coast Suns and with arguably the best player in the league in Ablett to lead the team, the sky is the limit for this talented group of youngsters.
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