Gold Coast demolishes Adelaide as Matt Rowell dominates again, Connor Budarick named Round 3 Rising Star nominee
Gold Coast has claimed its second Rising Star nomination in as many weeks, with former Crows fan Connor Budarick following in the footsteps of Matt Rowell after the Suns’ demolition of Adelaide.
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When he lined up against Adelaide on Sunday, Gold Coast’s Connor Budarick wanted nothing more than to topple the Crows.
The 19-year-old started life as an Adelaide fan in Robe, South Australia before swapping the beaches of the Limestone Coast for the beaches of the Gold Coast at age 9.
When the Gold Coast Suns joined the AFL in 2011, Budarick switched teams.
But he must have questioned whether it was a cursed move, given the Suns had lost 13 straight games against Adelaide — until Sunday.
“They had beaten us plenty of times in the past few years, so it was good to take them out,” Budarick said.
Following in the footsteps of teammate Matt Rowell, Budarick became the second Suns player to score a NAB Rising Star nomination in as many weeks.
Budarick logged 16 disposals and took six marks in his third AFL game in his debut season, playing a relatively new role in defence after spending most of his junior playing days as a midfielder or small forward.
“It’s been good being able to learn different tricks and different positions, adding different strings to my bow,” Budarick said.
“All the hard work that I’ve done over pre-season to strive to be an elite small defender is paying off. But the main part is to keep building every week, keep finding ways to improve.”
A long-time Gold Coast Academy member, Budarick started playing football at under-9s on the Gold Coast and idolised former Suns’ captain Gary Ablett.
“Everyone was a huge Ablett fan,” Budarick said.
“He’s a great of the game and I loved watching him play, whether it was live or on TV.”
While Ablett is no longer at the Suns, some experts believe the club is now in its best position since The Little Master was in his prime.
Internally – after two consecutive wins – belief is fast growing that that is indeed the case.
“We’re all really strong in belief of what we can do as a group,” Budarick said.
“The more we play together, the more we can be successful and that’s only going to help us in the long run. I think everyone’s really excited about our potential and what we can do as a group.
ROWELL DOES IT AGAIN, SUNS ECLIPSE CROWS
Dan Batten
Gold Coast young sensation Matt Rowell has declared the Suns are determined to be competitive and aren’t just “making up the numbers” this season.
After finishing in the bottom-four the past five seasons, the Suns have burst out of the blocks since the competition restart with barnstorming wins over West Coast and Adelaide, and 18-year-old Rowell has led the way in both.
The Round 2 Rising Star nominee stood tall against Adelaide’s experienced midfield, amassing 20 disposals, 10 tackles and two goals as the second ranked player on the ground according to Champion Data.
Rowell was “proud” that the Suns were able to back-up their Round 2 display but the exciting youngster isn’t satisfied just yet.
“We’ve just gotta recover well from this game and really build some momentum off this – we wont be happy with just two wins,” he told Fox Footy post-game.
“We are not satisfied with just competing anymore and making up the numbers, we’re here to win and we’ll keep doing that.
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“We thought that last week our main thing was our pressure so we just had to bring that again … the main thing was to hunt, hunt in numbers and I think we did that from the start and it was a pretty good four quarter performance.”
Rowell credited his experienced teammates for giving the young Suns brigade guidance.
He said co-captain David Swallow and fellow inside midfielder Touk Miller have helped improve his game from the moment he arrived at the Suns with the first pick in the 2019 national draft.
LEFT FOOT FROM OUTSIDE 50 🚀
— 7AFL (@7AFL) June 21, 2020
Matthew Rowell is different. pic.twitter.com/zelybvTtxS
“The experienced boys have been great for us young fellas I mean we wouldn’t be able to have the direction without them. They’ve really set us up … (Touk) Miller and Dave Swallow setting me around the stoppages. From day one since I’ve walked in, they’ve shown the way for me,” he said.
Asked if he was expecting attention from the Crows following his dominant Round 2 display, the youngster was unfazed.
“Not really I just go out there and play footy so I’m not worried about it that much,” he said.
RISING SUNS SEND CROWS CRASHING DOWN
Greg Davis
To butcher the title of a 1969 hit from The Beatles — here come the Suns.
And they’re all right.
The Gold Coast have had their fair share of false dawns in their short history but the one-time whipping boys of the AFL drew a line in the sand with an emphatic 53-point thumping of the atrocious Adelaide at Metricon Stadium.
It was the first time that the Suns had ever beaten the Crows.
Adelaide failed to register any score in the opening quarter to make it the first time the Gold Coast had ever kept an opponent scoreless in a term.
Boom 18-year-old Matt Rowell provided more clips for the highlight reel with two spectacular goals while key forward Ben King booted three goals for the rampant home side as Adelaide’s perplexing fall from grace since the 2017 grand final continues
Quite simply, the Crows are in crisis and it is hard to see any other side collecting the wooden spoon.
They only narrowly avoided their lowest-ever score of 24 points from Round 18, 2011 against St Kilda.
The final margin flattered Adelaide.
Rowell was best-on-ground again with 20 disposals, 12 contested possessions, three clearances, 10 tackles and three inside 50 entries to go with his two goals.
But he had plenty of help all over the ground with co-captain Jarrod Witts, Brandon Ellis, Ben King, Touk Miller, Lachie Weller, Hugh Greenwood and Queensland product Connor Budarick among the best in an outstanding collective effort.
They looked on track to challenge their biggest ever win – 86 points over Hawthorn in Round 3, 2017 — but the fourth term turned into junk time with the four premiership points long-sealed.
The Suns led by 58 points at the last change after continuing the carnage in the third quarter with the high point being an Ablett-esque goal from Darcy MacPherson who was against the boundary line with no angle to work with but managed to steer the ball home.
The Suns scorched their way to a 35-point lead at halftime with a four-goal pile-on in the second term allowing the Gold Coast to cash-in on their dominance.
King, Alex Sexton and Ben Ainsworth all kicked truly to extend the home side’s buffer before Rowell put the cream on top when he burst out of the centre square and pumped the Sherrin through the posts on the run off his non-preferred left foot.
It impressed Collingwood senior coach Nathan Buckley who quickly took to Twitter to praise the stunning goal and Rowell’s old-school habit of tucking in his jumper.
It was certainly an old-fashioned carve-up.
From the first bounce, the Suns had an intensity and urgency in their body language that was certainly not present in their Crows rivals.
And the numbers from the first quarter backed that up.
The Suns had 26 more disposals at quarter-time, 18 more contested possessions, 11 more clearances and 15 more inside 50 entries. Yet they also had four more tackles.
The Gold Coast peppered the goals early but their radar was a bit off until MacPherson eventually registered the first major.
King opened his account late in the first term to give the Suns a 19-point advantage at the first change while the Crows’ tally resembled a row of duck eggs.
Darcy Fogarty kicked Adelaide’s only goal of the first half, four minutes into the second term. Four Crows did not touch the ball in the first term while three had just the one touch to their name.
Suns senior coach Stuart Dew was proud of the way his side backed up from last week’s win over West Coast.
“Last week was exactly what we wanted to do and we set ourselves a challenge to repeat that maturity on the back of last week,’’ he said.
“We’ve got into a spot in the last couple of weeks where guys understand they don’t have to go over and above and if they stray from that it’s detrimental to the team.’’
Suns senior coach Stuart Dew was proud of the way his side backed up from last week’s win over West Coast and praised the effort across the park.
“Last week was exactly what we wanted to do and we set ourselves a challenge to repeat that maturity on the back of last week,’’ he said.
“We’ve got into a spot in the last couple of weeks where guys understand they don’t have to go over and above and if they stray from that it’s detrimental to the team.’’
Crows coach Matthew Nicks cut a dejected figure post-match.
“Fortunately or unfortunately we have to get straight out of the facility because there’s another game on. It’s hard to review, we haven’t sat down as a group yet and we’ll do that tonight, we’ll get straight onto it but we are in a world of hurt at this point,’’ he said.
“Just nowhere near the level. The intensity is not there. So we’ve got some conversations.
“To come back in this sort of form, it’s just not at the level. We’ve got work to do.
“We expected a response (after getting thrashed by Port Adelaide in The Showdown last week). We had a really positive week on the track after some reality and we weren’t able to deliver.
“The first quarter, contested ball. However you want to look at that, I’m sick of talking about it, to be honest.
“When you are pinned in your back 50 for the whole first 20 minutes of the game, it’s hard to come back from there. It gives the opposition confidence, it drains your energy so we’ve got some things to answer. As a midfield, we’ve got work to do.
“There’s too many areas for me to be angry with one but not the other.’’
Nicks said staying in the Queensland hub would be a good thing for the club and vowed to “work through this”. The Crows coaching and playing staff were set to meet last night after being given only 20 minutes to leave Metricon Stadium.
“We’ll talk about why. We’ll have a conversation around game plan, we’ll have a conversation around contest, intensity. We’ll have a conversation around everything, effort. We’ll go there,’’ he said.
He said Ned McHenry, Chayce Jones and Ben Keays showed some positive signs for the Crows.
“There’s some light there. It’s not extinguished but we are in a world of hurt,’’ Nicks said.
GOLD COAST 2.7 6.7 10.8 12.10 (82)
ADELAIDE 0.0 1.2 1.4 4.5 (29)
Goals: Gold Coast: B King 3 D MacPherson 2 M Rowell 2 A Sexton B Ainsworth C Budarick L Weller T Miller. Adelaide: B Crocker B Keays D Fogarty T Walker.
GREG DAVIS’ VOTES
3: Matt Rowell
2: Jarrod Witts
1: Touk Miller
Best
Suns: Rowell, Witts, Miller, King, Ellis, Weller, Budarick
Crows: Laird, M Crouch, B Crouch