Gold Coast’s first finals campaign ended in ruthless fashion by Brisbane
Gold Coast’s first finals campaign was ruthlessly ended by big brother Brisbane on Saturday night and coach Damien Hardwick has admitted the Suns aren’t ready to match footy’s best yet.
Gold Coast coach Damien Hardwick says the Suns must make the jump from being a “good side” to a “great side” if they are to contend for an AFL premiership.
The Suns’ season is over after Brisbane thrashed them by 53 points in Saturday night’s QClash semi-final at the Gabba.
While proud of his team for becoming not only the first Suns side to finish in the top-eight but also win a finals match, Hardwick was disappointed with Gold Coast’s performance against the Lions.
“All credit to Brisbane, they were too good,” triple premiership-winning mentor Hardwick said.
“We just couldn’t get the game on our terms at any stage, and we looked unlike us. A lot of that was Brisbane, but a lot of it was on us as well.
“We just made uncharacteristic mistakes and didn’t play our moments when we needed to, and unfortunately in finals, you’ve just got to do that consistently.
“We’re probably a good side. We’re not a great side at the moment, and that’s our job as an organisation to make sure we make that jump.
“It’s only the start of our journey. We’ve got a developing squad that I think is going to be very exciting moving forward, (but) the challenge, and the hardest part, is going from the top-six, top-eight to the top-four.
“That’s the jump we have to make, so we’re under no illusion that’s going to be hard, but we’ve also changed the narrative of our footy club, which I think is the most important thing.
“Our players stood up, played a great brand of footy, got ourselves an opportunity to play in finals to win our first final, but we’re hungry for more, and that will take the players into summer, and hopefully hold us in good stead next year.”
Hardwick said the Suns didn’t make the most of the few opportunities they had to halt Brisbane’s momentum after a tight first-quarter.
“Our contest was down, our pressure was down, and we couldn’t get our offence up and going either,” he said.
“We’ll learn some lessons from it. It’s hard, at the moment. You look at the game, and you’re just so incredibly disappointed.
“We had a whole heap of fans here, a whole lot of support, and you feel like you’ve disappointed them, but also, we’ve had a hell of a ride.
“I’m really proud of our footy club. We did change the narrative of the Gold Coast Suns, and I’m really proud of what the organisation stands for at the moment, which is awesome.”
Hardwick paid tribute to the retiring David Swallow, the Suns inaugural number one draft pick who played the final match in a 249-game top-flight career on Saturday night.
“It was great for Dave to get some reward and play some finals footy,” he said.
“Sometimes, there are guys that are really important to getting a club where they need to go. Dave Swallow is going to be one of those guys.”
Originally published as Gold Coast’s first finals campaign ended in ruthless fashion by Brisbane
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