Gold Coast’s next four weeks critical to season but action is more important than results
GOLD Coast’s immediate future will be decided in the next month and what will decide the Suns’ future will not be results but actions, writes Andrew Hamilton.
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GOLD Coast’s immediate future will be decided in the next month.
And with GWS, Adelaide, West Coast and Sydney to come, the Suns won’t be playing finals.
But you can lose games and still manage to win admirers.
Brisbane proved that against the Swans last week and an injury ravaged Suns did it in the back half of last year.
What will decide the Coast’s future over the next four rounds will not be results but actions, from the players and the club.
Coach Rodney Eade and football manager Marcus Ashcroft saved a club that was talking a walk on the wild side last year with tough decisions on wayward stars Harley Bennell and Charlie Dixon.
The behavioural issues at the Suns have improved dramatically but the culture hasn’t.
When people talk about culture, they are abbreviating winning culture.
It is more than staying off the booze or drugs and acting respectably in public, it means knowing what it takes to win and doing it, giving and accepting from others nothing less than 100 per cent.
It is time for another series of tough calls on the Gold Coast.
What will decide the Coast’s future over the next four rounds will not be results but actions.
It goes against the grain for coaches to drop quality players for battlers, and that is all that’s left in the reserves at NEAFL level.
But picking blokes who repeatedly give the same selfish, half-hearted or ill-disciplined efforts ensures they won’t change.
The credits have been used up.
No other player’s form has dropped as dramatically as Aaron Hall while Clay Cameron, Sean Lemmens, Kade Kolodjashnij and Jesse Lonergan are all battling.
Which leads us to list management decisions.
It should be deadline time for Dion Prestia. If he cannot commit in the next four weeks the Suns should cut ties and start looking for a trade.
They need a lead-up forward, a key defender and more midfielders.
The players have always had the upper hand in contract negotiations at the Suns because they have been petrified of losing them. It has given A-grade power (and salaries) to players with B-grade records.
The Suns need to find some more resilient players too.
There was more than $3m of the salary cap unavailable on Saturday night when Matt Rosa and Alex Sexton were injured.
Every player should be re-evaluated on how they respond over the next month. Only those that lift should be part of future plans.
For all the rhetoric about the Suns’ abundant talent, they have just one A-grader in Tom Lynch — and four if Gary Ablett and Jaeger O’Meara rediscover their form and Steven May continues his development..
It is time to bring another star into the club.
Meanwhile, Ablett has been applauded for attempting to calm an irate member who was using foul language in the vicinity of children to abuse the players on Saturday night.
The Suns are investigating the matter and the fan faces having his membership torn up.
Originally published as Gold Coast’s next four weeks critical to season but action is more important than results
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