The Suns are really trying to get me to write the same things over and over again on this blog. We have had yet another game where Gold Coast can’t put together 4 quarters of football. When they were on top they didn’t capitalise as much as they should have and they couldn’t slow down Carlton once they got going.
Let’s start positively with the first quarter blitz. The Suns seemed to win every contested ball and finished with 11 scoring shots but just 6 goals. Fiorini and Swallow both badly missed snaps at goal and Swallow missed another kickable set shot. Swallow should really have had 4 goals in that first quarter alone. The Suns seem to miss about the same amount of shots whether they are particularly difficult ones or not. Luckily Sexton and Rosas had some composure to finish their chances. Rosas has looked much more AFL-ready since playing some midfield in the VFL, it appears to have given him a boost and while he probably won’t be kicking 40 anytime soon, his place in the 22 for next season is looking more secure.
At least we got to see some of the quick handball and contest game again which will likely develop under Hardwick. A lot of those early chances came from quick ball movement and created shots in a relatively empty forward 50. It was a formula they didn’t replicate consistently on Saturday but that is mostly explained by Carlton evening up the contests around the ground and waking up after quarter time. Again Rowell, Miller and Flanders showed how they could thrive in Hardwick’s system, I really hope the Harwick signing will kepp Samat the club, he looks like an indispensable piece at the moment.
In the second quarter Charlie Curnow got a hold of the Suns. He took a marks on Ballard and Collins and was very poorly tackled all game. It may be just a case of a great player being great but I would have hoped the plan to stop Curnow would have worked a little better. In the past the defensive rotations between Ballard and Collins have slowed down Curnow and McKay but today they both got off the leash. Collins hasn’t been as reliable as a one-on-one defender this year and Ballard is still shaky in that area. We have one more test of this with Nick Larkey this weekend. Hopefully they can bottle him up and remind us of what they are capable of as a defensive unit. I may have to look more closely at the kind of entries we are allowing to see how much of the responsibility is on the last line of defence or higher up the ground.
The team has also gotten into a habit of giving away silly free kicks. Levi Casboult has always been good for at least one due to his physical style of play but the rest of the team has been more prone to it recently. Now some of this may just be down to umpiring but some of the 50m penalties given away have been costly and very much avoidable. I don’t really talk about umpiring but I think the team have failed in games like this one and the Port and Brisbane games to adjust to the umps and avoid giving away set shots.
This contributed to a seven-goal series from Carlton which wiped away a massive lead. That is the kind of momentum swing good teams don’t allow. The Suns appear to have still not learned a winning routine. I think this is mostly down to lack of experience on the field and in the box. Most of the 22 haven’t played on a successful AFL team that is used to winning and Stephen King has been a head coach for just a few rounds so it’s understandable that he hasn’t totally learned how to manage in-game scenarios.
The quality of the Suns disposals also dropped off as the game went, suggesting they were wearied. They can’t still be falling away late in the season like this. The Suns will at best go 4-7 after the bye this year, again failing to even get close to breaking even in the second half of the year. That would be the same as last year when the Suns were far more competitive in all of their losses and had one less game to play. The Brisbane win is the only spotlight really from after the bye. That chink of hope is doing a lot of work to keep me from writing off what we’ve seen since the trip to Darwin and only further confirms to me that Dew had to go. There is a clear step up that has to made to get the three more wins needed to challenge for finals.
Having said all that it is areal shame that Noah Anderson’s late kick for goal didn’t quite hit the target, it would have been sweet to see him nick another win in the dying seconds. It wasn’t to be and now we have given Carlton even more confidence for a finals’ push, what a shame. Now they just have to get up for the trip to Tassie and put away the Roos. I would like the last game of the season to be over by half time and for King and Lukosius to recover without any complications going into the offseason, please and thank you.
Eyes on the Suns 
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