Gold Coast r11 Preview – Can they win in Melbourne?

The Suns’ first big game in Melbourne will be on Saturday against Carlton. The two teams are playing for a spot in the 8 and will get a chance to illustrate their finals’ credentials. The Blues will be expected to win without too much trouble to be considered title contenders, and the Suns can start to make the case that they are the real deal this year if they can compete on the road against a top side.

Selection hasn’t thrown up any big news. Witts comes back in for Moyle, Walter is in for Day and Holman and Rogers are back after a week off against Geelong. Alex Davies is probably the only player hard-done by this week because he played well in Darwin, but Rogers probably has a higher ceiling so Hardwick is committed to giving him games.

Adam Saad is back fit to face his former side, all the more motivation to keep him quiet and get one over on him Jack Martin and Elijah Hollands, three of the more egregious deserters in Gold Coast’s history. Weitering has passed a fitness test, he is one of Ben King’s toughest matchups. The key forward has kicked multiple goals just once in 4 seasons against Carlton. Maybe King ends up as more of a decoy and we look to get Walter and Lukosius free from McGovern or Kemp.

The midfield will be the most important sector of the game as usual because Carlton rely on scores from stoppage and the Suns look a lot worse when they don’t have the edge in clearances. We saw in the 2^nd quarter in round 14 last year how centre clearance wins in particular can swing a game. Even without Cerra the Blues’ mids matchup very well with the Suns, they are bigger and can bully teams off the ball. Staying on their feet will be key for Miller and co. to both give them every chance to win the ball and limit the damage of Carlton’s clearances.

Around the ground we should all be looking to see if the Suns can keep building on the handball game which created so many good scoring chances last week. Carlton’s defence will be more capable than Geelong’s was so we won’t have anywhere near the freedom we did in Darwin. Carlton have struggled to move the ball from defence like us so whoever does that better could really tilt the game in their favour. Jeffrey and Flanders off halfback and Clohesy, Rogers, Miller and Ainsworth will all be key to this. How quickly have they adjusted from Darwin’s conditions, and how much further along are we from the insipid efforts against Brisbane and Sydney where we looked incompetent without the ball.

Again I can’t bring myself to pick the Suns so my pass mark is to be within 2 goals till late, so I at least have proof that we can run with big teams in Victoria like we’ve never done before. It would also be great if we could blanket Curnow and force McKay to beat us, because I don’t think he can do it. How we do that I don’t know but that’s not my job. Bring on the Blues lets finish the round inside the 8 again!