Stuart Dew’s bold gamble in dying minutes of Gold Coast Suns win
In the shadow of full-time on Sunday afternoon, Gold Coast Suns coach Stuart Dew made a massive gamble that eventually paid off.
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The Suns were brave to pull off a dramatic one-point win over Greater Western Sydney today in Ballarat.
But nobody took more of a risk than coach Stuart Dew in the frenetic final quarter at Mars Stadium.
With his superstar midfielder Touk Miller having taken a regular interchange break midway through the term, play became bottled up on the outer wing for minutes as the Giants pushed to what would have been a miraculous into-the-wind heist.
With time ticking away, Dew plucked up the courage to play one short and send a forward from the ground in order to get best-afield Miller back on for the closing minutes.
Immediately upon his return, Miller won yet another clearance, the equilibrium was regained and the Suns soon scored what turned out to be the winning goals.
The gamble paid off as the Suns defeated the Giants for the first time since 2014.
“For a while he got caught off the ground and we took a risk bringing one of our players off while the ball was still in play to get Touk back on and he won that clearance,” Dew said with great relief after his ace racked up another 34 disposals - including 16 contested - laid 14 tackles and kicked two goals.
“In the end we just said let’s take a risk and play 18 on 17 for that period, but luckily the ball went the other way.
“But I feel like it’s press play every week about Touk — he’s just so consistent about the way he approaches footy, he’s a leader and he’s desperate and loves this footy club.
“I think the players feed off it and, importantly, they’re starting to play alongside him as opposed to waiting for Touk and that’s our growth area.”
Gold Coast, in hindsight, won the game in the first quarter, holding the Giants to just a nine-point lead despite kicking with a four-goal northerly wind.
But it was the way they sealed another close victory - to frank the ground-breaking win over Richmond a week earlier - that will carry the conversation with the rooms abuzz after the game.
“Yeah it’s a good feeling. Obviously on the back of last week, we talked about replicating our hardness around the ball,” Dew said.
“GWS was really good in that phase, but post-stoppage we thought we were really good and held up when we needed to.
“And pleasingly, two weeks in a row, we were headed in the last (quarter) and to find a way to win is really important for our group and club.
“In the third quarter they had a strong period when we lost our way. But I think the attitude and way we played is really important to us. A win is fantastic for our supporters or our club, but ultimately it’s the way we go about it we’re chasing.”
Dew sung the praises of secondary big man Chris Burgess, who was hard at the ball throughout and kicked a telling goal in the third term against the wind.
He also said last year’s boom recruit Matt Rowell had shown great signs in the closing minutes.
“Externally it will look like a quiet game, but if you look in the last four minutes when the game was there to be won, Rowell was everywhere. And we know that’s what he’s capable of.”
On the downside, the Suns are bracing themselves to lose Hugh Greenwood to a long-term knee injury after he went down early in the match.
“Fears are it’s an ACL and that’s really disappointing,” Dew said.
“He’s a much-loved member of the group and we just talked about it (in the rooms) … he’s just had the birth of his second child, so one of the best weeks of his life, and now a bit of a dampener on it.
“But we’ll get around him. I think someone just fell across him, so it’s pretty innocuous. We feel for Hughie and it’s a loss for us.”
Gold Coast will almost certainly face the Bulldogs at home next week, but Dew said the extended stay in Victoria had been something of a blessing for his young squad.
“We joked that we’re two from two (here if we) stay,” he said with a laugh.
“But it’s really important for our guys to handle this. Tuesday week ago we jumped on a plane and we’ve been really professional … there’s a lot of distraction and noise and routine goes out the window.
“So that’s the most pleasing thing about this — just resetting, having a good week (last) Thursday and then coming again.
“There’s lots to take from that and our guys we want to hammer home that message that we have a really simple recipe and we don’t want to stray from it.
“The work we’ve been doing - and I know it sounds funny with how we played against Freo and Port and North - but we’re really confident in how we’ve been training, “We’ve done a lot of close-finish training, we were in front in six of the eight games early this year in the last quarter, (so) we’re keen to run these games out and we’re a very fit side.
“There’s method we can get better at, but we showed up at the right times today.
“We know we’re at, it’s just a good feeling in the change rooms.”
Footy smarts cost Giants
Coach Leon Cameron bemoaned his team’s lack of footy intelligence as a series of small-ticket items added up to more than one headache for Greater Western Sydney in Ballarat on Sunday.
The Giants fell for the second time in three weeks to a lower-rated opponent, going down by a point to the Gold Coast Suns on a blustery day at Mars Stadium.
In doing so, they lost their spot in the eight, superstar Lachie Whitfield to a migraine and any ground they’d made up with a stirring win against then-ladder leader Melbourne last week.
And Cameron was far from impressed with a handful of the Giants’ decisions, notably an inability to either rush a point or at least bring a long kick to ground in their attacking goalsquare in a frantic final minute.
“We’ll look back at this game and see that it was our footy intelligence that didn’t get it done,” Cameron said.
“In terms of the effort, when you’re plus-30 in contested ball, plus-15 in clearances, nearly equal tackles, the effort is there.
“But we just didn’t have the polish, we fumbled around a little bit and made poor choices going forward when we had those opportunities.
“You can try all you like, the indicators will say we’re brave, pressure was good, clearance work was fine, but that’s only one part of the game.
“You’ve got to stay switched on when other things happen.
“Their moments were bigger than ours and that’s why they won by a point. We didn’t stay in the moment that we needed to (and) there will no doubt be six, seven or eight things you look back on (and ponder) … it’s a hard one to take in the context of the season.”
Cameron wouldn’t be drawn to comment on a late free-kick against Isaac Cumming that controversially handed David Swallow another shot for what ultimately became the winning goal as the Suns blew home on the breeze.
But he was clearly frustrated that the Giants had been unable to think their way through the mad scramble that ensued.
“We’re disappointed (also) because the first quarter we just didn’t take advantage of the wind, we out the far side a little bit too much and we got caught out there,” Cameron said.
“The Suns defended really well and we didn’t cash in when we needed to. Clearly you’re trying to take advantage of the scoring end in the end it’s cost us, they took advantage in the second, we took advantage in the third and I thought we were enormous in the last coming into the wind.
“But at crucial times, collectively we didn’t get it done.
“Credit to the Suns they did enough to hang on, even in the last two and a half minutes, it got really tight, we just lost our structure a bit, we kicked it forward, they marked it.
“There’s learnings from it, they’re hard learnings because losing a game like that in the context of the season is disappointing, but that’s what happens in footy.”
The Giants lost Lachie Whitfield to what originally appeared a concussion after his courageous mark and goal in the second term.
But Cameron said the dashing midfielder might well have a different final diagnosis.
“He’s been hit in the head, but he’s very, very prone to migraines in his history at our footy club the last nine years and he had a thumping migraine … so we’ve taken him out of the game at half-time and we’ll just assess how he’s going,” he said.
“He’s such a brave player, sometimes too brave, but it hasn’t been assessed as concussion yet, clearly it’s a migraine from the knock, we’ll trust in our doctors and our medical team to make that call.”
A decision on the location and timing of the Giants’ next game, originally hosting a Sydney derby against the Swans, will be made in coming days, but Cameron said the venue would not be a factor.
“As a young club, we’ve learned to win anywhere, if it’s at the G, if it’s at Ballarat, if it’s at Canberra, it’ll be a great challenge against a side that’s in form.
“We have to lick our wounds, acknowledge the opposition and go full steam ahead against the Swans in six days.”
The Giants played with fire all day at Mars Stadium – and it finally burnt. Badly.
Greater Western Sydney will fall from the top eight after a dramatic and controversial one-point loss to the plucky Gold Coast Suns in Ballarat.
They were outplayed for much of a windswept match in Ballarat, but courtesy of 10 stellar minutes with the breeze before the final break and a stern last-term defensive effort into it, the Giants appeared as though they’d only be singed.
But Suns veteran David Swallow was awarded a free-kick for what seemed a very gentle push in the back at the point of the goalsquare with minutes remaining after his original kick dribbled into the right post.
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The subsequent kick sailed straight through the middle as the Suns hit the front for the final time for their sixth win of the season.
Giants skipper Toby Greene had two of his three goals verging on the miraculous before the frantic closing minutes with his team surging forward.
But when he took an out-of-bounds free-kick deep in the right forward pocket in the final minute, Greene took an all-or-nothing approach by trying to kick a goal when a point for a draw might have been more prudent.
More telling, though, was that when the ball finally landed in the goalsquare, it was marked by the Gold Coast with three towering Giants unable to bring the ball to ground for a mad scramble or a rushed point.
It’s this inattention to detail that will mystify coach Leon Cameron, even if he remains calm outwardly.
With a win against then ladder leader Melbourne spliced in the middle of a maddening month, the Giants have now taken just six premiership points from clashes against battlers North Melbourne, Hawthorn, Carlton and Gold Coast — all with September action beckoning.
It was also disappointing for Jacob Hopper in his 100th game for GWS to have racked up a career-high 41 disposals and drive his team back into the contest, only to see it come up agonisingly short.
But the plaudits should definitely be rich for the Suns, who showed great gumption, particularly into the wind in the first quarter and early in the third term to keep their winning target in reach when the breeze was at their back in the final term.
Matt Rowell wasn’t prolific, but was dogged in the final minutes and booted a critical bouncing goal as well.
The heroes for the Gold Coast were former Tiger Brandon Ellis (career-best 41 touches) and his white-hot mate, Touk Miller who had 34 disposals – including 16 contested – laid 14 tackles and kicked two goals.
COURAGE TO THE END
He hadn’t been his usual prolific self in the first term, so it was not surprising to see the ultra-talented Lachie Whitfield throw himself into a contest early in the second quarter to give himself a spark.
But in another gutsy act in a weekend where they’ve been a great talking point, Whitfield’s heroics proved his undoing.
The reigning Giants’ best-and-fairest winner leapt with the flight of a piercing pass from Harry Himmelberg and clung to a fantastic mark despite the inevitable contact from oncoming Suns Jackman Jack Bowes.
Whitfield immediately took a wobbly step when he found his feet, but was both skilful and courageous enough to slot his team’s only second-term goal across the wind.
But not long afterwards, the midfielder came to the bench and his match was over he failed the concussion protocol.
RODAN TO NOWHERE
The wind made it tough to judge how far the ball would fly, but it’s safe to say that Giants ruckman Shane Mumford made a fundamental mistake midway through the third term.
With Sam Day kicking for goal from 40m out into the teeth of the wind, it always appeared touch and go whether the ball would reach the goal line.
But so far back was Mumford, in a position far better suited to still conditions, that he couldn’t quite reach forward far enough to get to the footy as it dropped right near the line.
It initially appeared as though Mumford might have been shepherded by former player turned goal umpire David Rodan in place on the line, but replays showed “Mummy” simply didn’t have the time to reach the ball.
BINOCULARS, ANYONE?
For the second week in a row after last week’s Swans-Eagles clash in Geelong, two non-Victorian teams drew an unexpectedly impressive crowd to regional Victoria.
It’s obviously impossible to know the demographics of the crowd at Mars Stadium, but it’s safe to say most made a rookie mistake in choosing their vantage points.
There were only five goals all day to the northern end, behind which the grandstand presumably offered respite from the northerly wind that gusted in excess of 40km an hour at times.
SCOREBOARD
GWS: 2.4 3.4 8.10 10.5 (65)
def by
GOLD COAST: 1.1 5.3 7.3 9.10 (64)
GOALS
Giants: Greene 3, Himmelberg 2, Whitfield, Hill, Lloyd, Finlayson.
Suns: Sexton 2, Day 2, Miller 2, Atkins, Burgess, Rowell, Swallow.
MARK HAYES’ BEST
Giants: Hopper, Greene, Ward, Perryman, Kennedy.
Suns: Miller, Ellis, Bowes, Burgess, Fiorini, Swallow.
MARK HAYES’ VOTES
3 — Touk Miller (Suns)
2 — Jacob Hopper (Giants)
1 — Brandon Ellis (Suns)
INJURIES
Giants: Whitfield (concussion).
Suns: Greenwood (right knee).
Reports: nil
Venue: Mars Stadium
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