Emerging Gold Coast sporting stars Mac Andrew and Keano Kini are desperate to deliver success to the region
In a far cry from years past, Mac Andrew and Keano Kini are two emerging stars who couldn’t be happier on the Gold Coast. Inside the region’s shift.
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The tide is turning on the Gold Coast.
Once a transient player destination where sporting franchises came to die, success is now closer to the horizon than ever.
While not yet the finished product, both the AFL’s Gold Coast Suns and NRL’s Gold Coast Titans have enjoyed an upturn in form and a new-found level of stability this season.
Suns key defender Mac Andrew and emerging Titans fullback Keano Kini are young stars-in-the-making in their respective codes, who have both declared their desire to commit long-term to the region they have fallen in love with and deliver it success.
“I feel like that’s starting to change,” Andrew, who is now in his third season with the Suns and hails from Cranbourne in Melbourne’s southeast, said of the Gold Coast’s negative sporting image.
“Both teams across rugby and the AFL, I feel like we’re starting to compete.”
Andrew became the first player of South Sudanese heritage to be taken with a top-five draft pick in 2021 and he has lived up to his billing as a supremely talented intercept defender, while the agile and zippy Kini has turned heads in the NRL arena and is already touted as Gold Coast’s long-term no. 1. Both players are already Nike athletes.
Andrew said a premiership with the Suns would “mean the world” to him.
“Not only for me but for the whole Gold Coast community to put football and the Gold Coast on the map,” he said.
“We can push for finals this year, I really believe we can, and when you get to September anything can happen.
“We’ve beaten teams which have had success in the last couple of years, we’ve beaten good quality opponents and competed against good quality opponents as well.”
The Suns are still in the mix to play finals footy this year and sit just six points outside the top eight at the time of writing, and while they are undefeated at home this year they are yet to win a game on the road.
“We touch on it but I try not to read too much into it,” Andrew said of his side’s away form.
“We’ve been in a lot of the games we play away, it’s just about us not playing our system for a longer period of time.
“We’ve had some poor starts when we’ve been on the road … I think just finding that balance and playing a good game for the four quarters.”
For the Titans, finals remains unlikely and they sit 15th on the NRL ladder going into round 21, however they showed glimpses of what could be to come with a three-match winning streak that encompassed a club record 66-6 shellacking of the Warriors.
Kini, who played a major hand in that win streak, moved to the Coast with his family in 2021 and completed his final two years of school at famed rugby league nursery Palm Beach-Currumbin.
“I want to stay here, I love the place, I love the club, and this is where I want to have my success, on the Gold Coast,” Kini said.
“It’s obviously the best place to live, I’ve got my family set up here, I’m loving the teammates and the coaching staff (at the Titans).
“If I could (bring success) here that’d be great. To be the first team to do that is a dream of mine.
“I’ve been really enjoying my footy lately, obviously not the results in some of the game’s but I’m finding my feet very well and gaining confidence every week, loving it under Des.”
The mood has shifted at the Titans under coach Des Hasler, with a number of key cogs now committed to the club long-term.
20-year-old Kini, along with Jayden Campbell and David Fifita – who famously backflipped on his decision to leave earlier this year – will all be at the club until at least 2026, while AJ Brimson penned a monster extension that tied him to the club until at least 2030.
“I don’t think the team’s been focused on that outside noise but those players staying and signing long-term is really healthy for the club,” Kini said.
“I think us younger boys are going to benefit and we’ll work towards something good.”
Similarly, stability has also washed over the Suns as of late. Not long ago a club riddled by the ‘go-home factor’, it has now secured its nucleus for the foreseeable future.
Andrew attributed the arrival of three-time premiership coach Damien Hardwick to the club’s transition.
“Now with ‘Dimma’ it feels like a whole new club, I feel like everyone’s a lot more connected, he’s made the club a much more open space,” Andrew said.
“I feel like I’m connecting with the staff a lot. You need to have that connection with everyone in the football club to challenge for premierships and build sustained success.”
“Now over the past couple of years you see player retention and players wanting to stay … I know I want to stay and play under him for the rest of my career.”
Standing at 6’8, Andrew has always been hard to ignore, but the laid-back nature of the Gold Coast is just how he likes it.
“I’m enjoying it, I feel like you can go about your business and do your own thing, escape the little footy hub of Melbourne,” Andrew said of his move north.
“You still have your own space to go about your day as any other normal person would, whereas in Melbourne those other guys may not get the same opportunity.
“I’m loving it up here, I really enjoy it, you can’t complain, it’s good weather all year. I’ve made a home up here for myself and have a good crew that I hang out with everyday.”
Interest on the Gold Coast in Aussie rules may not be at the levels of footy-mad Melbourne just yet, but it is certainly headed that way. Just take a look at the game’s participation numbers, which have increased by over 50 per cent across the past five years, or the fact the Suns have achieved a record number of sellouts this year.
Andrew is well aware of both the responsibility his club holds, and impact it could have on the growth of Aussie rules on the Gold Coast, of which it has already been a significant driver.
“The amount of numbers we’ll be able to bring to the games,” Andrew said.
“The junior numbers would go through the roof if we were to win a flag up here.”
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