AFL 2024: Damien Hardwick says stats don’t matter to Gold Coast players
Those playing SuperCoach might want to avoid picking Gold Coast players because coach Damien Hardwick’s system isn’t about stats.
AFL
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New Gold Coast coach Damien Hardwick is confident his “very coachable” playing group will be more and more willing to put personal stats hauls to one side and continue to develop the system he says will “win lots of footy games”.
Hardwick revealed he sent a post-match text message to young forward Tom Berry for “one of the best” six possession games he’d seen in last weekend’s stirring 39-point win over his old team Richmond to ram home the message that winning isn’t about stats.
“I sent Tommy Berry a text (after the game),” Hardwick said.
“For a six possession game, it was one of the best I’d seen. We’re not going to be a high-stats team.
“We’ll develop a system of play and style that will take us a long way, where we need to go.
“Players are required to fill those roles and if they do, we’ll win lots of footy games.
“They’re not going to get a lot of SuperCoach points but hopefully we walk away at the end of the season winning more games than we lost.”
Berry only had six disposals but also laid three forward line tackles as part of a trio of pressure players, including Malcolm Rosas Jnr and Nick Holman, whom Hardwick labelled his “three amigos” and an important part of the team’s system.
“The three amigos; those guys are crucial to the way we wanted to play … the speed factor up front is really, really important,” the coach said.
“They don’t have to sit there and kick a great deal of goals.
“If they put on high pressure, win and nullify contests and make us hard to play against, that’s a great result.
“They have to understand how important they are to our system.”
Hardwick’s stamp on the team was clear in their haul of 11 straight goals to set up the victory against the team he coached to three premierships.
That’s the level he wants the Suns to get to and with a round 1 clash against Adelaide the next test, Hardwick said improvement would be continual but sticking to the system would be crucial.
“This group is very coachable; they try to do everything right,” Hardwick said.
“We have to move from the conscious to the subconscious.
“I don’t want them thinking – this is a silly thing to say – but we don’t want them thinking too much on the field, I want them playing off instinct.
“That’s why we’re not going to be perfect and will get better as the year progresses.”
Originally published as AFL 2024: Damien Hardwick says stats don’t matter to Gold Coast players
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