Buti's Call: Is the sun setting on yet another Gold Coast expansion?

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This was published 4 years ago

Buti's Call: Is the sun setting on yet another Gold Coast expansion?

By Tony Buti

The Gold Coast is a graveyard for professional sporting teams, boasting a long list of national franchise teams who have performed poorly and either folded, rebranded or relocated.

In rugby league we had the Gold Coast-Tweed Giants/Gold Coast Seagulls/Gold Coast Gladiators/ Gold Coast Charges (1987 to 1998) and in the Union code there was the East Coast Aces (2007).

Gold Coast are in their ninth year of AFL competition, but have yet to finish higher than 12th on the ladder.

Gold Coast are in their ninth year of AFL competition, but have yet to finish higher than 12th on the ladder. Credit: AAP

Basketball saw the Gold Coast Cougars/Rollers (1990 to 1996) and in that other American game – baseball – there was the Gold Coast Clippers/Daikyo Dolphins/Gold Coast Cougars (1989 to1999).

Then there was the Ice Hockey team, the Brisbane Blue Tongues (2008 to 2013), and in the world game – soccer – there was the Clive Palmer-backed A-League side, Gold Coast United FC (2008 to 2012).

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There was also the Brisbane Bears, who entered the VFL competition in 1987, playing their home games at Carrara on the Gold Coast before moving permanently to the Brisbane Cricket Ground (“Gabba”) in 1993 and merging with Fitzroy in 1996 to become the Brisbane Lions.

Now only two national sporting teams remain based on the Gold Coast.

One is the Gold Coast Titans, who currently sit last on the National Rugby League ladder and are struggling financially.

The other is the Gold Coast Suns, who since entering the AFL competition in 2011 have followed the tradition of Gold Coast national franchises in being a failure.

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They won the wooden spoon in their first season and since the competition moved to 18 teams in 2012 with the entry of Greater Western Sydney, the Suns have never finished higher than 12th in any season, plus one 14th, 15th and 16th positions and three 17th standings.

This year their mediocrity has once again hit rock bottom and after last Saturday’s 91-point thumping by the Brisbane Lions in the “Q-clash” at the Gabba, the Suns are all but assured of receiving their second wooden spoon with only two rounds remaining in the home and away season.

In August 2008, the Suns appointed legendary former West Coast Eagles defender Guy McKenna as their inaugural senior coach after former Brisbane Lions triple-premiership captain Michael Voss walked out after he was offered only a three-year contract as head coach; he wanted five years.

McKenna was charged with steering the Suns’ squad in the 2009 TAC Cup under 18s competition and then the VFL in 2010 before their AFL debut in 2011.

In addition to access to 20 17-year-old Queensland players in 2009, at the end of the 2010 season the Suns were given a number of concessions including the first pick in every round of the 2010 AFL draft plus additional first round picks at numbers 2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13 and 15, approval to sign up to 16 current AFL players uncontracted for 2011 and the first five selections of the rookie draft.

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McKenna had a huge challenge on his hands, seeking to develop a young squad while at the same time winning games against more season-hardened teams.

The Suns did seek out some experience to assist the young players, recruiting the likes of Jared Brennan and Michael Rischitelli from the Brisbane Lions, Campbell Brown from Hawthorn and superstar Gary Ablett Jr from the Geelong Cats.

Ablett headed north to the Gold Coast in 2011 to captain the side for their first year in the AFL. He was the outstanding player for the Suns, picking up another Brownlow Medal in 2013 to go with his first in 2009 while with the Cats. However, his last couple of years with the Suns were marked by injuries and he returned to Geelong for the 2018 season.

While Ablett gave great service to the Suns, particularly early on, the same cannot be said for NRL recruit Karmichael Hunt, who was implicated in a drugs scandal along with several other Suns players at the end of 2014.

And in recent days we have reports that 19-year-old Suns’ player Brayden Crossley has allegedly returned a positive drug test. We await further details.

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Serious questions have been asked about the culture at the Suns, located in the fun-loving sand, sun and surf environment that is the Gold Coast.

McKenna, who was sacked as coach at the end of the 2014 season, after the Suns’ best-ever year where they finished 12th, was unfairly tagged as “racist” by some within the club when he called out inappropriate behaviour of a young player for drinking and clubbing the day before an AFL fixture.

Some in the football industry have long argued that McKenna was treated poorly by the Gold Coast hierarchy and that the new franchise set McKenna up for failure by not hiring a former experienced coach to mentor him over the first few years of his tenure.

Rodney Eade, who had previously coached Sydney and the Western Bulldogs, replaced McKenna but the Suns’ performances went backwards and after three seasons at the helm Eade was replaced in 2018 by dual premiership player and Sydney Swans assistant coach Stewart Dew, who has still not been able to turn around the sinking ship.

Dew has a very difficult job trying to right the wrongs of the past.

In addition to the failure on the coaching mentoring front, the Suns’ sub-standard development program has prevented the club from taking full advantage of their generous draft concessions.

Also, questions have been raised over the Suns’ list management strategy with inadequate experience to mentor the young players.

There is a need for more mid-20s and older players at the club, because the younger players are more prone to inconsistency on match day and injuries as their bodies are still developing to tackle the rigours of the AFL week-in, week-out.

The club has found it difficult to retain some of their quality players, such as Jaeger O’Meara who moved to Hawthorn, Don Prestia and Tom Lynch to Richmond, Josh Caddy and Zac Smith to Geelong and Charlie Dixon to Port Adelaide.

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It is difficult retaining in-demand players at a club that perpetually finishes in the bottom quarter of the ladder, based in rugby league heartland where AFL for many locals is an afterthought at best.

Even though the Suns play out of the high-standard Metricon Stadium in Australia’s largest non-capital city, the average home attendance is under 20,000 spectators per game but there have been games where the attendance has been under 10,000 people.

Club membership sits at a paltry 13,649, the next worst club being the Brisbane Lions with 28,023 and then the other expansion club, Great Western Sydney, who have 30,109 members.

The Suns are in their ninth year of the AFL competition and the early talk of not having to wait too long before appearing in the finals and Ablett holding aloft the premiership cup in front of a sea of adoring members and supporters has long evaporated.

The AFL may just need to admit that their Gold Coast experiment has failed and cut its losses.

I can hear Tasmania calling.

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