Why Sunny expectations should be tempered

Sitting seventh on the ladder after seven rounds, the Gold Coast Suns have been an excitement machine, capturing the hearts of many AFL fans in 2020.

For much of the club’s history Gold Coast have been criticised and maligned, often the punchline of many a joke.

What 2020 has shown, though, is what many people who watch the Suns have known for a little while now: the club has turned a corner and there is plenty to work with.

Extending Stuart Dew’s contract for another two seasons was necessary given the job he has done, and given there are no contracts expiring at the end of 2020 for any of the high-quality players at the club there’s reason for optimism.

Since the horrific 47-point loss to Port Adelaide in Round 1 the Suns have won four from six games since the competition restarted.

(Photo by Graham Denholm/AFL Photos via Getty Images)

The loss to Geelong away from home was valiant after Matt Rowell was injured in the opening minutes of the contest, and the tight tussle with a vastly improved Melbourne team was a 50-50 contest that the club could justifiably be disappointed in not winning.

The 2020 season is a strange beast, and the AFL is getting by with fixture-cramming and hubs defining the competition.

It has led to analysts and fans alike questioning whether the Suns can make finals this season and potentially do some damage.

There’s something undeniably exciting and ultimately rewarding in joining the Suns’ ride, but any expectation of big things at this stage of 2020 should be parked.

While the team has been impressive, the highlights are far more appealing than the reality of the situation.

This argument isn’t built on the standard question of ‘who have they beaten?’ any diehard opposition fan poses every time there is positivity surrounding a club.

Gold Coast has played good footy in each game they’ve contested since the competition’s resumption regardless of whether it has been against Adelaide or Geelong.

(Photo by Matt Roberts/AFL Photos/Getty Images)

It’s the way the Suns are playing and the sustainability of the tactics that is more questionable and is the reason right now Gold Coast is not a finals team.

Look no further back than Round 7, in which the Suns handily defeated a struggling Sydney team by 32 points.

The Swans are expected to be a bottom-three team in 2020 given their injury issues and lack of key personnel, but with some impressive young talent a job was there to do for the Suns.

Gold Coast finished with 32 scoring shots to 15, dominated the hit-outs, clearances and marks and were way above the league average for efficiency going inside 50.

But as per usual the Suns won the match based on their pressure and intercepting, which continuously makes up for their inefficiency and committing of clangers.

The advantage of a completely undersized Sydney defence assisted going forward, but the pressure in the midfield and defensive side of the square has always defined the Suns this season.

(Photo by Jono Searle/AFL Photos/via Getty Images )

Gold Coast forced Sydney into having more contested possessions than uncontested possessions on the day, which has been the antithesis of Sydney’s style. This resulted in the Swans committing 75 turnovers, 14 above their average for the season.

Led by Jack Bowes and Charlie Ballard – nine and seven intercepts respectively – Gold Coast’s defence feasted as a result of the pressure higher up the ground.

It’s very much a rinse and repeat tactic that the Suns try to implement as much as possible, led by arguably the year’s best recruit, Hugh Greenwood.

Against the Swans Greenwood finished with 23 disposals, 18 contested possessions, 12 tackles and nine clearances. Between rounds five and seven he averaged 12 tackles and six clearances a game, truly marking himself as the team’s No. 1 midfielder and barometer.

The secret is that the 28-year-old is thriving in the shorter games, as his 85 per cent time on ground average over these three games isn’t overly different to his 65 to 70 per cent average time on ground at the Crows in full matches.

He isn’t alone in the tackling numbers, with Touk Miller and David Swallow averaging over five a game for the last few weeks, helping cover the absence of young star Matt Rowell.

The coach’s tactic has been set up so that the half-forwards come higher up the ground to apply physical tackling and inferred pressure, forcing the opposition to rush kicks.

It also means that the same commitment is required in the opposite direction with open space ahead.

It has required full-team commitment and much-improved fitness to enact such a plan, with the likes of Ben Ainsworth, Alex Sexton and Nick Holman spending much more time on the wing and across the centre square than expected, along with Izak Rankine, to squeeze the opposition.

It certainly makes the key defensive duo of Sam Collins and Ballard look great, with the former one of the best performers in the league.

Collins rates above average in marks, contested marks and spoils while rating elite for intercept marks, while Ballard thrives on peeling off. When operational and functional as it was against Sydney, it works well.

But the sustainability of a pressure game causing intercepts is questionable when the team is poor going the other way.

(Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)

Ultimately, the game against Sydney went exactly as expected statistically, which included a total of 68 clangers and a disposal efficiency of 64.9 per cent for the Suns, both way below AFL average.

In fact after seven rounds Gold Coast have the equal worst disposal efficiency in the competition at 68.9 per cent and average 54.6 clangers per game, which is nearly five clangers per game more than the next worst offender.

The club are ranked third for tackles and intercept marks and fourth for goal-kicking accuracy, which, when tied in with the inefficiencies, tends to indicate that the Suns may be overachieving a little in the first half of the season.

Given the importance of intercepting to the club, it makes it a far more dangerous tactic when they allow the opposition to control the ball with a kicking style and identify targets inside 50.

Charlie Ballard is more of an interceptor than a key defender, and statistics show his struggles in contested situations.

Melbourne was able to exploit Gold Coast in defence at times, withstanding some pressure and applying their own aerially inside 50, where the Suns looked shaky when Collins wasn’t in the area.

More than likely the Suns will find themselves matching up really well against certain teams while others will find it simpler to navigate around the tackling pressure and force Gold Coast to take on more challenging kicks.

Teams such as the Bulldogs and Essendon may be harder to systematically breakdown given their tendency to run at angles once out of defensive 50 and use their hands in the contest compared to Carlton or St Kilda, where the Suns can apply zonal marking and pressure higher up the ground.

How Gold Coast is able to handle shorter breaks and backing up quickly remains to be seen, and the rolling fixture will give a good indication as to how they will go.

Short backups in contested games will see the Suns lose more heavily than we’ve become accustomed to in 2020 and may force the necessary defensive rejig to free up Ballard.

Whether they choose to bring in Peter Wright will depend on Sam Day’s form and fitness, with the current attacking set-up and player selections perfect for the Suns’ approach.

There’s no doubting that the Suns are a fun team to watch, and the reward of isolated, primetime games are justified and well accepted by the average footy fan.

But to expect Gold Coast to make finals and have a defining say on the season based on the performances and statistics after seven rounds of the season may be a bridge too far.

The future is looking bright and sunny days are ahead for Gold Coast, but for now it might be time to cool down and temper hopes and expectations.