Gold Coast
Coach – Stuart Dew
2021 –
Points For – 18th
Points Against – 13th
Top 5 Best and Fairest
- Touk Miller
- Wil Powell
- David Swallow
- Sam Collins
- Charlie Ballard
2021 Rising Star Noms
Jeremy Sharp (Rnd 18)
Ins – Mabior Chol, Mac Andrew, Charlie Constable, Levi Casboult
Outs – Will Brodie, Aiden Fyfe, Hugh Greenwood, Jarrod Harbrow, Jack Hombsch, Jordan Murdoch, Zac Smith, Luke Towey, Jacob Townsend
My Prediction
There is few things that I struggle with more than writing the preseason prediction for the Gold Coast. Maybe this is the year they finally do something. Probably not though. Feels like another year of the Suns being less than mediocre.
The backline is probably the best performed area of the Suns and it should be. They see plenty of the ball. Collins has stood up and partnering with Ballard to give them reasonable talls. Their half backs are average with Powell probably leading the way along with Lemmens on Budarik.
The midfield sounds ok on paper and you can see that at some stage it should be a good one. Rowell and Anderson alongside Miller is a pretty good start. Greenwood would have been handy if they were a reasonably well run organisation but they arent and now he plays for North. They will looks like millionaires in some games but other games will look well below average.
The forward line is built for the future if they can keep their talent. Future Bombers Full Forward Ben King is lining up in his final season on the Gold Coast and will be supported by Chol who will play four or five ripping matches and four or five terrible ones interspersed with a dozen invisible ones. They need a lot more from Lukosuis, Ainsworth and Rankine than what we have seen so far.
The rucks look better than last year when they didnt have any. This year Witts returns from knee injury and they picked up Chol to give him a chop out. they needs Witts to play some seriously good football. The coach is keeping the seat warm for the AFL to parachute in Clarkson at some stage which is probably necessary as there has been little proof that Dew is doing much more than propping up the struggling Gold Coast bakery industry.
I have no faith that the Gold Coast are going to do anything new this year. They haven’t looked competitive in a long time since Ablett carried them on his bodgy shoulders. There is some pretty good young talent there but it is very young and they dont have quality senior players supporting them. I cant see them climbing anywhere near the finals and think anywhere twelfth or above would be good for them. I think 14-16 is that landing point.