The club that has been defined by misplaced hope for its whole existence has, again, misplaced hope a few times this year.
The Round 3 win over Geelong and more recently the Round 11 win over the Bulldogs and Round 12 win over Adelaide are examples of the Suns staying true to form.
Only Carlton and Guy Pearce from Memento have had more false dawns than Gold Coast in the last few years.
As a result, their current coach Stuart Dew is in the crosshairs.
This is not restricted to Dew. The Suns have had three full-time coaches in their history. Not one has coached 100 games. Not one has won 25 games.
Not one has a winning percentage higher than 28%. Guy McKenna, their first ever coach, is also their most successful by winning percentage with 27.27% of his career games won.
Not great.
But it’s not just that the Gold Coast Suns have been terminally unsuccessful in their time in the AFL. This point has been made ad nauseum, but sports teams that live on the Gold Coast have almost invariably been some variety of calamity.
My personal favourite of the calamities was Gold Coast United, where Clive Palmer got ahead of the story that Succession tried to tell: Billionaires aren’t all geniuses.
To that end, people forget about when big Clive punished Gold Coast United’s 11 fans for throwing a flare by…closing the northern, eastern and southern stands of the stadium.
Jarrod Witts and Wil Powell of the Suns. (Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)
People also forget about when he fancied himself a modern-day Kerry Packer after the FFA revoked his club’s A-League licence, so he decided he should come up with a new competing football organisation for Australia. That organisation was creatively named “Football Australia”.
Hilariously, their slogan was “we kick harder”.
Clive Palmer must be such a gift to this country’s economy. Unlimited pockets and limited cognitive ability. A search firm’s dream.
That survived from March 2012 until June 2012. LIV Golf it was not.
So, based on the history of the club and the history of the Gold Coast, which appears to be a city built on a foundation of fake tan and TRT, isn’t Gold Coast obviously a bad job? I would say no, or at least not entirely.
Let’s look at the positives.
Firstly, the weather.
Okay, secondly…
I’m kidding, although not really given that I am writing this in Melbourne where it currently feels like 3 degrees.
(Photo by Graham Denholm/AFL Photos via Getty Images)
Anyway, onto more substantive matters, the Suns’ list is better than you think. At least down the spine. Down back Charlie Ballard has shown real flashes of being a genuine AFL footballer and a building block of a one day good defence.
Rowell is perhaps the best inside mid in the AFL and a good complement to Noah Anderson who is going at virtually a goal game for the season. Both are in the top 20 for stoppage clearances per game, but Anderson is also a highly effective outside player. Beyond those two, Touk Miller who has been injured for much of season 2023, is one of the better players in football when on song.
The midfield trio of Rowell, Anderson and Miller being fed by a still good Jarrod Witts would be one of the most formidable in the competition.
Up forward they are less established outside of Ben King, who has kicked 31 goals this year at a rate of 2.4 per game. Not bad for a team that generates only the 13th most shots at goal per game.
Around him is the incredibly hot Levi Casboult, who is playing well now that he’s finally in a stable organisation, and the tantalising Mabior Chol who is still raw enough to be fashioned into a good second banana in a functioning forward line if King sticks around long term.
Jack Lukoscious is another who has shown real flashes, ranking in the top 20 in football in each of score involvements, total goals and total inside 50s and punctuated his season so far with a dominant 5 goal display against the Crows in round 13.
The bones of the list are there, and outside of Casboult and Witts not one of the players that I mentioned is over 30.
Another positive of the Gold Coast job is that there is no expectation. Any success is gravy. Gold Coast does not have a history, it has a past littered with failure.
If and when you fail, you’re just football’s Macbeth (another one on the Gold Coast). You weren’t meant to succeed, and you didn’t. A footnote in a tortured past.
On the other hand, imagine you’re the guy that turns Gold Coast around!
The applause when you head down Cavill Ave would be… like a rat pissing on cotton. Nobody would care.
But you know where you would be paraded around? AFL house. You would be the person to make the AFL right. And the AFL wants to be right, especially about their rapid expansion into non-AFL states, especially before Tasmania enters the competition.
(Photo by Chris Hyde/Getty Images)
The whole situation reminds me of James Gunn taking over DC studios. He’s a guy who is coming from Marvel, having directed The Guardians of The Galaxy trilogy which are apparently quite good. I am not seven years old so I have grown out of adults playing dress up, but other people seem to like them for whatever reason and the movies made a fortune.
DC studios is a bit like the Suns. That’s not to say that the Lions are Marvel, but it is to say that they are clearly a lower tier film company in the superhero movie industrial complex that is ruining cinema in the same way that the Suns are a bottom run AFL club.
Move on GWLS. We get it. You’re excited for Killers of The Flower Moon. Original.
DC has good bones, like Gold Coast, with iconic characters like Batman, Superman and their respective villains, but they have been remarkably unsuccessful in recent years. Really since the Nolan Batman films. James Gunn has now been brought in as the guy to fix DC.
If he does, he’s a genius. If he doesn’t, well, he just fell victim to the decay emanating off a decaying property. Not his fault. It’s no-lose.
Having said all of that, surely that very first game day as your opponent kicks their 11th goal of the first quarter, Gob Bluth must pop into that coaches’ head with five words: “I’ve made a huge mistake.”
Non Serviam
Roar Rookie
Pretty certain they got Ballard with the pick they got from Freo in the Brayshaw/Weller trade. GCS did alot better from that than what ppl focus on.
Charlie Keegan
Roar Guru
Even pick one wouldn’t get that deal done haha. Ballard is a jet and an academy pick as well
Non Serviam
Roar Rookie
Yeah it's going to be hard, I'll let them send Ballard and Powell to wce lol
Charlie Keegan
Roar Guru
Yeah like Jed Walter is going to be a super star and they’re going to win the championships off the back of the Gold Coast Suns Academy. The question I have is who gets delisted? I can see there are a lot of players that will get booted off the rookie list but off the senior list so far I can only see Casboult, sharp, Flanders, and Davies are the ones that will move
The Ghost
Roar Rookie
Short answer: no. If anyone can turn this rabble around it’s Hardwick. Dew has even lost it he support of Mark Evans. An announcement on Dew will probably be made by the end of the month. Stephen King will see out the season as interim coach, ahead of Hardwick’s appointment.
Non Serviam
Roar Rookie
The talk should be about package of lower picks for GCS first round not going the number one
Charlie Keegan
Roar Guru
Yeah I’ve been chatting to a few mates and they reckon there are four or five academy kids they can take
Non Serviam
Roar Rookie
Even if they only nab the 2 best they are going ridiculous at the champs. With silvani not joining the draft till later if st Kilda maintain the perpetual bidder is out of the equation :stoked:
Don Freo
Roar Rookie
Not necessarily Hardwick. Dew is fine. I do agree that The Suns are becoming an important part of the AFL landscape. If sporting teams want to establish a foothold on the Gold Coast, it takes more than a token decade. Thankfully, the AFL has the necessary funds to enable an enduring and, eventually, permanent place there.
Charlie Keegan
Roar Guru
Problem is the afl changed the rules so the suns can’t take all three academy kids if the bids come that high
Charlie Keegan
Roar Guru
I feel for Dew, but I reckon he needs to prioritise his health he’s in his forties and he’s a big unit. Coaching is a stressful gig and I don’t think his health is going to improve while he’s a senior coach. That being said I do not think the Suns should go after Hardwick because he will not improve the suns. I think Ratten or Mark McVeigh are the best coaches to take them forward
Randy
Roar Rookie
Gold Coast has still had the Burleigh Bears and Tweed Seagulls who were there long before any highrise buildings went up. The Titans have a lot of local juniors in their squad, many who've come from the famous Keebra Park High system. Their crowds are still also above the Suns and if they were making finals regul :rugby: arly they would be getting close to 20k a game.
Tim O'Hare
Roar Rookie
‘Even the Titans NRL team have struggled to make an impact in Rugby League mad Queensland.’ I’ve lived here my whole life. A lot of untruths about Queensland. One is that it’s Rugby League mad. While Rugby League enjoys decent support in QLD, it’s nothing like what AFL is in Victoria (or SA or WA for that matter). People in QLD get into Rugby League for the State of Origin, and the Broncos with Brisbane being, until the Dolphins, a one-team town, but it’s still not anywhere near like what AFL support is like in AFL states (as a point of comparison, the Broncos averaged 30,000 people a game last year, which is 6,000 short of what Port Adelaide averages and Port Adelaide is only the second team in SA). Another factor is that, as I’d argue, Rugby League is stronger in inland places – Ipswich, Toowoomba, Roma. The Titans are very much an expansion team designed to gain support in a growth market, as opposed to having a strong, pre-existing fanbase. I can think of a lot of NRL legends from those aforementioned areas, I can’t think of any from the Gold Coast. There’s also the variable of the Gold Coast having quite an itinerant population. Adults who are moving into the area aren’t adopting the Titans as their team and the kids aren’t necessarily taking up Rugby League.
DriveBy
Roar Rookie
"I have grown out of adults playing dress up" Presumably no actors are wearing their own clothes in any movie. You're so mature, you probably watch movies where they wear no clothes.
Chanon
Roar Rookie
That club in the banana republic will never work. You can’t turn sh.t into gold it’s not humanly possible.
GiddeeUp
Roar Rookie
I spent some time living in South East Queensland and as a Victorian, two things really stood out to me: 1. If you wake up at 5am any morning and look outside the window, the streets are full of people, and 2. The number of sporting "participants" is significant. Whether it be swimming, cycling, kayaking, running, fishing etc. there are more adults involved in physical activities than anywhere else that I have lived. Which begs the question, are the population of the Gold Coast more likely to be "Sports Participants" than "Sports Spectators"? The fact that every single sporting franchise on the Gold Coast has been a failure to date, the problem isn't isolated to AFL. I truly believe that it's a cultural issue on the Gold Coast, and I don't see that changing any time soon. They are "Doers" not "Watchers".
Non Serviam
Roar Rookie
It's a very attractive job, list is solid but still missing some key pieces and the 3 academy kids they will get this year are all top 15 in a non compromised draft.
PeteB
Roar Rookie
The title of this article :laughing: :laughing: :laughing:
The Sports Lover
Roar Rookie
Thanks for the early morning chuckles guywholikessport. As usual, all satire or humour on such matters contain a deeper truth. It's true that the Goldie is a graveyard for 1st class team sports. Even the Titans NRL team have struggled to make an impact in Rugby League mad Queensland. It's difficult to understand why though. I lived in SE Qld for 16 years and still remain to be convinced that the failure theories are just something that is synonymous with Gold Coast living, like a swim before breakfast. I do note however, that so many of the tall athletic looking locally born teenagers (male and female) seem to be focussed on water based sports. Surfing and Surf Life Saving are obvious but also competitive rowing, kayaking etc. Ultimately though, successful AFL teams down south are able to build a culture based on intergenerational family involvement with both players, fans and community. The churn of talented draft picks returning to Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne is a serious drain on a club that can least afford it. As for Dew, I would like all fans to ask themselves this question. If Chris Scott or Alastair Clarkson had been coach of the Suns over the last decade, how many flags do you reckon the Suns would have won? My answer is NONE.
Gyfox
Roar Rookie
The last time I attended a match on the Gold Coast (my club was the Away team) I was impressed by the various Suns suporters who came from all over, even northern NSW. I also heard of the growth in Aussie Rules since the Suns started. Nth Melb had the chance to tap into this market, but declined the offer. Despite the stories about the Gold Coast being death for professional football teams, Suns are an essential part of the AFL for the growth of footy. They just need a coach like Hardwick.