Gold Coast Suns Viability - How Long Have They Got?

[GVGjr]

Re: Gold Coast Suns Viability - How Long Have They Got?

I know a lot of people keep mentioning Tasmania but unless they were successful I think they would also struggle with player retention as well which is the Suns main challenge

[Rocco Jones]

Re: Gold Coast Suns Viability - How Long Have They Got?

I know a lot of people keep mentioning Tasmania but unless they were successful I think they would also struggle with player retention as well which is the Suns main challenge

I agree. My point is more than 18th team is needed due to TV rights and Tassie beats GC, but you could randomly point to a place on the map and beat GC as a location for an AFL club.

[Bulldog Joe]

Re: Gold Coast Suns Viability - How Long Have They Got?

I think giving them unhindered access to NT is the real positive for them.

However, they need to manage the players and development professionally.

I also think the increased list helps, but they really need to be required to utilise the extra spots on mature agers.

[Twodogs]

Re: Gold Coast Suns Viability - How Long Have They Got?

I know a lot of people keep mentioning Tasmania but unless they were was successful I think they would also struggle with player retention as well which is the Suns main challenge

There are a lot more native born players then there are in the north of Australia though. Tassie is also a lot closer to Victoria too so players can see family more often.


It's easy to come up with millions of reasons not to do something but from what I can see we are pushing shit up a very steep hill trying even just to get a toehold on the Gold Coast while there are people pleading to have a team in Tassie. Let's secure the borders before we go trying to expand. In classic military terms we are separated too far from our supply lines and badly exposed to being out flanked.

[Happy Days]

Re: Gold Coast Suns Viability - How Long Have They Got?

I think giving them unhindered access to NT is the real positive for them.

However, they need to manage the players and development professionally.

I also think the increased list helps, but they really need to be required to utilise the extra spots on mature agers.

Agree with this. Giving them access to a large area with footy ties that is (very loosely and only by virtue of no one else being close) proximal is the sort of thing that can give the club the soul they are sorely missing.

[soupman]

Re: Gold Coast Suns Viability - How Long Have They Got?

There are a lot more native born players then there are in the north of Australia though.

There's like 5 players on the league from Tassie. Darwin might have more.

[Rocco Jones]

Re: Gold Coast Suns Viability - How Long Have They Got?

There's like 5 players on the league from Tassie. Darwin might have more.

25 Tasmanians in the AFL in 2019.

[soupman]

Re: Gold Coast Suns Viability - How Long Have They Got?

25 Tasmanians in the AFL in 2019.

Wow a lot more than I thought. There was definitely a drought recently so must have been some good development years of late.

[GVGjr]

Re: Gold Coast Suns Viability - How Long Have They Got?

I think giving them unhindered access to NT is the real positive for them.

However, they need to manage the players and development professionally.

I also think the increased list helps, but they really need to be required to utilise the extra spots on mature agers.

Fully agree, at least it's given them a 3 year horizon to establish the club properly

[GVGjr]

Re: Gold Coast Suns Viability - How Long Have They Got?

Generous? Yes. But the AFL had no choice with Suns
From Jake Niall

Some officials at rival clubs and certainly a significant portion of fans view the AFL's three-year handout package to the downtrodden Gold Coast Suns as an excessive form of welfare.

But the AFL really had no choice but to err on the side of generosity in gifting extra draft picks and other measures to a club that simply wasn't competitive in the second half of 2019, and which has an ongoing struggle to retain players despite clear improvements in the environment and welfare programs.

While other clubs will moan about the extent and nature of the handouts and compromises to the draft, the AFL could not afford to give the Suns a package that was light-on.

Better to give them too much in the way of assistance, rather than too little. If they came up short and the Suns flatlined again, the consequences would be severe for the AFL and the game, bearing in mind that this club has not succeeded for nine seasons and counting.

If this is perceived as a prop to a club that has scored own goals in the past, the rescue package is really a correction for the AFL's own blunders when the Suns were established, as the league – wrongly – assumed that the Suns would be an easier sell to players and staff than GWS, which was then based in the far west of Sydney.

The Suns entered the competition with insufficient people with experience in key roles and they did not receive the same recruiting concessions as the Giants, whose mature recruits – especially Phil Davis and Callan Ward – were inspired selections.

In their pitch, the Suns cleverly planted the idea with headquarters that if they were travelling better than expected then the AFL would have the option of reducing these concessions – removing picks next year or in 2021, or taking away the freebie deal on Gold Coast academy players (who can be just added to their list).

But let's face it, this is unlikely to happen.

Gold Coast also used the handouts given to the Swans in the '90s as a point of comparison for the AFL commission, while chief executive Mark Evans buttressed his arguments by showing the AFL how his old team, Hawthorn, had managed to stay thereabouts by trading and free agency, virtually without having any early draft picks over the past decade.

The Suns got most of what they sought: picks galore, free academy players, Darwin in their academy zone, extra spots for rookies - all of it over three years.

Where they failed in their lobbying was in getting a salary cap allowance, such as the cost of living allowance that Sydney and GWS lost post-Buddy Franklin, to assist with retention, easily their greatest issue.

Gillon McLachlan has an ideological view that clubs should operate on more or less the same salary cap. The league cites the Lions' rise up the ladder, with no salary cap advantage, as a case in point, and also argues that the extra money would be swallowed up without making a difference.

Only time will prove McLachlan and the league right on that score. I would have given the Suns a moderate allowance – less than the 10 per cent the Swans had – over that three year period, in view of the club's unique challenges.

It cannot have hurt the Suns that Richmond had gained both Tom Lynch and Dion Prestia and reached another grand final with three ex-Suns (Josh Caddy too), and that, as with Jaeger O'Meara, Steven May and Gary Ablett, the players that leave Gold Coast have been accepting less money than the Suns would have paid.

The most intriguing aspect of the hand out, though, is the while the Suns didn't formally ask for this, the AFL is really handing them access to two specific players, Carey Grammar school mates Noah Anderson and Matt Rowell, who – barring some mishap or unexpected trade – will be headed to the Suns as a tandem.

Clearly, the fact that these close friends could come, as a pair – as if they were boarding Noah's Ark – is supposed to improve the prospect of keeping them for long enough for Gold Coast to build a decent culture and team, in that order.

The AFL have given them a shot. Henceforth, it's up to the Suns.

[Hotdog60]

Re: Gold Coast Suns Viability - How Long Have They Got?

The AFL will try very hard make it work so they can beat their chest and succeed where other codes have failed.

[ratsmac]

Re: Gold Coast Suns Viability - How Long Have They Got?

Now that they have been given NT zone they should consider a name change like we did from Footscray to Western Bulldogs. The Northern Suns has a nice ring to it and it can help broaden their supporter base that way. They should also play at least 4 home games in the NT (in the middle of winter) like us in Ballarat, Hawks in Tas etc.

At the moment they are going nowhere fast even with the leg up they have received from the AFEL. They should be being more proactive in spreading their brand more and branding or aligning themselves with the NT as Happy Days said will help giving the club some soul it so desperately needs.

I still think they are dead in the water and the only way they will survive long term is relocating to a AFL football state.

[DOG GOD]

Re: Gold Coast Suns Viability - How Long Have They Got?

Surely this is the last ditch effort.

Yes they may get Anderson and Rowell for that 3 year period, but what if they lose King and Lukosis in the meantime?

I think they’re just treading water, and this 3 year concession is nothing more than a giant bandaid covering a gaping wound that can’t be stitched.

[GVGjr]

Re: Gold Coast Suns Viability - How Long Have They Got?

Surely this is the last ditch effort.

Yes they may get Anderson and Rowell for that 3 year period, but what if they lose King and Lukosis in the meantime?

I think they’re just treading water, and this 3 year concession is nothing more than a giant bandaid covering a gaping wound that can’t be stitched.

It's well worth it by the AFL though, a 17 team competition wouldn't be great

[Twodogs]

Re: Gold Coast Suns Viability - How Long Have They Got?

It's well worth it by the AFL though, a 17 team competition wouldn't be great

Does it necessarily have to be a 17 team comp if the Suns fall over? Surely the sensible decision in that case (The AFL finally getting it through their thick heads that the Gold Coast is a leisure/holiday area and that the people who live/holiday there aren't interested in watching sport.) is to move the Suns to Tassie.

I learned a long time ago that the only reason you bang your head against a brick wall is because it feels good when you stop. It's time for the AFL to stop banging their head against that brick wall. I understand that Gil is desperate to get his memorial project up so he can look like a genius (the man who finally managed to get a pro sporting team to prosper on the GC) but I'm not willing to stand by and watch him piss the goodwill and money the AFL has made up against a wall trying to prove how clever he is.