It’s getting harder and harder to be a Gold Coast pessimist.
After 14 years of pretty much wall to wall doom and gloom, the Suns have, quite clearly, never been better than they are right now.
Second on the ladder – at the time of writing, at least – after holding off Hawthorn in an eight-point thriller in Darwin for their seventh win in nine starts in 2025, this is a team that knows its strengths, plays to them, and controls the tempo of the matchs they’re in better than at any point in their history
They have a strong defence capable of both shutting down talls and smalls, pulling down a swathe of intercept marks, and the addition of John Noble and Daniel Rioli to add pace and drive off half-back, their major missing link from last year, has paid dividends – the former’s in the form of a lazy kilometre’s worth of metres gained against the Hawks.
The midfield is brutal. Jarrod Witts controlled the ruck for large portions against Ned Reeves, and at ground level had several influential moments in the dying stages; Matt Rowell is an inside bull who might just be the hardest man in the AFL to tackle; Touk Miller is thriving in a new role as a midfielder-forward giving his unbelievable tank all the open space he needs to burn off opponents and influence the game in the attacking half; Noah Anderson arguably has fewer weaknesses than any prime midfielder in the AFL.
Up forward, what was once a Ben King-centric attack now has other scoring options, from Miller, whose 10th and 11th goals for the season against the Hawks take him to a career-high tally with more than half the year still to go, to the brilliant bursts of Bailey Humphrey, and of course one of 2025’s most-improved players, Ben Long, who has transformed from bash-and-crash battler to high-flying mid-sized forward with a nose for goals virtually overnight.
This is a team that ran rings around an impressive Hawks midfield at clearances, with every key stat pointing firmly in their direction. Not only were the clearances themselves dominated 50-35, but five of their first nine goals came from the source in a first half which set up an eventually crucial early break.
At that stage, they had gained more than 400 metres from their 29 clearances – big even by their competition-leading standards. Add to that 16 of 17 centre bounce wins leading to an inside 50, plus three goals from the source – including the game’s most crucial, Miller’s snap deep into the last quarter to give the Suns breathing space – and it’s abundantly clear where they bested the Hawks.
The Suns’ transformation into a highly potent, destructive stoppage team, and one that can lock the ball inside its own attacking half for minutes at a time to score more from their forward half than any other team in the league, has Damien Hardwick’s fingerprints all over it.
Under Stuart Dew, the Suns were basically Brisbane lite: they kicked the ball nearly two-thirds of the time in 2023, far more than any non-Queensland team, and were narrowly second in the league for metres gained per disposal, trailing only Port Adelaide.
But unlike now, it wasn’t translating: you’d think such a heavy focus on kicking would have afforded them a similar domination of territory to the Lions, and therefore more chances to capitalise on the scoreboard, but they were actually bottom-five for inside 50 difference per match to their opponents, compared to Brisbane’s second. They were likewise bottom six for scores sourced from their attacking half (the Lions? A clear first).
The Lions’ game plan worked because it played to their strengths – high kicking is fine when you’ve got elite distributors and a forward line with options galore. The Suns had neither, and so, they suffered.
Under Hardwick, this is a totally different team. Instead of bombing at the first opportunity, or even looking to hit up leading targets, they instead move the ball by handball, gaining territory in this way before looking to execute a kick inside 50 as the final link in the chain.
Inside 50, too, the Suns rarely have a ping unless they’re in space – note in the below chain how Miller assesses a quick snap is no good and handballs it clear, while Anderson, assessing that he has room to move, snaps truly (and even then, burns a teammate he could have given to instead).
The numbers don’t lie: Gold Coast in 2025 are, relative to their opponents, bottom-four for average kicks per game, bottom-five for disposals and bottom five for marks … and yet first for inside 50s (+13 per game before the Hawks win), second for metres gained, fourth for marks inside 50 and first for scoring from their forward half.
It’s all about efficiency, and the Suns right now are masters of their craft.
So why don’t I fully buy into them yet?
Well, part of it is their tendency to give up scores in clumps when the direction of the game goes away from them. Leading by 26 points with just minutes to go in the second quarter, the Suns, to put it mildly, fell asleep, with the Hawks pouncing with three goals in four minutes set up by a 4-0 clearance edge and 5-0 inside 50s.
It was worse last week against the Western Bulldogs, when an unassailable 28-point lead was whittled down to three with four goals in seven minutes as the Dogs looked set to run over the top of them.
In a low-scoring scrap against Brisbane the week before, three goals leaked in four minutes via a slow start to the second term was the difference in an otherwise fierce fight; against Richmond, meanwhile, they thrice leaked back-to-back goals barely a minute apart late in the second term and throughout the third to let the Tigers shoot to a 43-point lead they couldn’t reel in.
It’s hard to play the way the Suns do: like with the Tigers of yesteryear, it requires a huge amount of running, desperation at every contest, overlap options and very little time for rest.
Mistakes come, too, from this gung-ho approach – in Geelong’s system, there’s no way known Joel Jeffrey is going as quickly as he does here unless there’s a clear and present option one simple pass away.
There’s scarcely any chipping around the backline waiting to set up – the Suns like to attack quickly to open up space for forwards to peel into – and it’s often difficult to pull off the defensive running needed to stop teams hitting back with equal speed the other way.
Put it this way: of the four games the Suns have played this year against fellow top-eight teams, they’ve conceded between 90 and 96 points, and won those games by one, 10 (with a kick after the siren) and eight points.
Two of those came at their Darwin fortress where they’ve won eight games in a row and acclimatise to the conditions better than anyone else – in particular, their control of a slippery ball against the Bulldogs and Hawks has been a key reason for their twin victories.
And last but not least – it has to be noted that the expected scores had the Suns losing to the Hawks, with only their exceptional accuracy, especially from snaps, getting the job done.
From 7-2, the Suns have at the very least September, if not a home final and maybe even two of them, staring them in the face. Their run home is kind, their form is excellent, and at their best this is a team that can devastate even their fellow contenders with pace and brute strength from stoppages.
You know what will absolutely convince me? If they head to Marvel Stadium next week – a ground where they’re 1-4 under Hardwick (with the win via a kick after the siren) – and defeat a Ross Lyon-coached St Kilda who have a knack of finding and exploiting the weaknesses of teams in positions like the Suns find themselves in now.
Do that, though, and it will be official: the Suns won’t just have arrived, but they’ll be absolutely terrifying.
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