Stuart Dew and Alan Richardson are both looking for any light in very long and very dark tunnels

GOLD Coast completely collapsed to an injury-ravaged GWS; and St Kilda conceded the biggest first-quarter score of the season ... and their coaches are being tested.

AFL Round 12. 09/06/2018. St Kilda v Sydney at Etihad Stadium. St Kilda coach Alan Richardson talks with Jack Steven pre game . Pic: Michael Klein

• Insipid Suns officially in crisis
• ‘Unacceptable’ Saints put heat on Richo

DO AFL coaches draw sympathy ... or empathy?

And which would apply to first-year Gold Coast coach Stuart Dew and his St Kilda counterpart Alan Richardson?

The honeymoon for Dew - as he starts his long-touted senior coaching career with a football team that just has never seemed right while being located in the Bermuda Triangle of Australian sport - will be long (but not sweet) as everyone recognises his challenge at Gold Coast.

Alan Richardson and the Saints had a night to forget against the Swans. Picture: Michael Klein

The Suns have not won a game since falling in against Brisbane in the Q Clash on April 22. Gold Coast has not won a quarter since opening with 2.6 against the Western Bulldogs on May 5. This has left Dew to sit through 18 consecutive losing terms - and wonder, as he did publicly last week, if his players care.

When the final siren had the Suns down by 108 points to Greater Western Sydney on Saturday night, Dew has greater reason to wonder if free-agent forward Tom Lynch will care to stay on the Gold Coast next year.

Dew’s starting assignment in AFL coaching - after a fair apprenticeship, particularly at Sydney - always was to be difficult with the Suns locked out of their home ground by the Commonwealth Games on the Gold Coast.

Dew certainly should draw empathy.

Richardson is in his fifth season as St Kilda coach. He has not heard his players sing the club song since March 24 when the Saints beat Brisbane. They have been without victory for 11 consecutive weeks - and on Saturday night were appalling in their want to change this record while conceding 9.1 in the first term to Sydney at the Docklands.

Richardson, who has the “safety net” of a contract that holds to the end of the 2020 AFL season, has been handed by his club a playing squad the Saints remarkably thought was capable of outpacing Melbourne to a top-four ranking this season.

St Kilda has been delusional with its list management, a task now kept well away from AFL coaches ... and for that curse, a fine man such as Richardson deserves much sympathy.

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