2021 Review

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M

Mt Isa Mustang

Cancelled
Dream Team Club Board Winner
Nov 23, 2019
3,349
3,703
AFL Club
Gold Coast
Few thoughts going on already amongst other threads but be good to consolidate here

what went well

what went poorly?


what do we hope for next year?
 
Good
- Touk
- Fiorini (Didn't sook, just worked hard)
- Lukosius (What a weapon)
- Anderson (Gun, best young mid prospect)
- Markov (Great pick up, will thrive with a crowd)
- Lemmens (Locked down a spot in defence, Budarick v Lemmens 2022 interesting)
- Powell (Top 5 in B&F, as one user would say He is what Jack Martin was suppose to be)
- King (MONSTER)
- Farrar (Solid player, Pick 60)

- 7 wins
- Wins against Collingwood, Richmond, GWS
- VFL side looking half decent, and getting two massive wins against Swans and Aspley?
- Jeffery kicking 9.0
- Ability to win games when we play fast football
- Burgess playing solo/main ruck
- Touk getting 30+ disposals for 16 games straight
- Touk making AA Squad
- Sharp getting a nomination
- Ainsworth getting dropped and coming back on fire

Bad
- 76% ... what is that?
- 16th...
- Dew inability to change the game plan
- Another wasted year developing youth over winning games
- Day, Witts, Rowell, Budarick going down early
- Greenwood, Weller M.I.A 2nd half of the year
- A non-existant 2nd forward/ruck when Peter Wright was sitting there the whole time
- VFL side having a bye very second round, impacting our dropped players to get form.
- Wasting Will Brodie's talent.
- Wasting our salary cap on Rory Atkins our professional Medical sub.
- Not being able to stay in games against Top 4, borderline Mercy Rule
- Hardly any games at Metricon
- Coach borderline sacked? New coach 2022?
- ok now i'm just getting tired
 

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Ben Drever said:
Anyone got access

No Cookies | Herald Sun

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www.heraldsun.com.au www.heraldsun.com.au
Click to expand...

paraphrased a bit, and took out some irrelevant stuff:
Gold Coast’s football department will begin its year-ending review in coming days still expecting Stuart Dew to be the senior coach next season.
The Suns returned from Melbourne to begin 14 days of quarantine as speculation again swirls about the future of Dew after another miserable end to the season. The club’s continued discussions with Dew have been around surrounding him with more support staff including a senior assistant to replace Josh Francou.

Despite continued chatter regarding AFL House installing a new coach, chief executive Mark Evans has not had a single conversation about Dew’s performance with the league. Evans has also backed in football boss Jon Haines despite continued speculation about his future, believing he has the tools to make an excellent long-running football boss.

Dew has been told by senior management figures at the Suns he will coach next year, having made clear in his final press conference of the season he had been given an assurance about his position. Alastair Clarkson is not seen to be a contender to move north while his son is completing Year 12 next year in Melbourne.

In the volatile AFL landscape until the Suns publicly declare Dew is their senior coach for 2022 the rumour mill will continue to rumble.
The club’s staff and players are spending time with families and will in coming days have exit interviews with the list.

Then late in the week the football department will run a season review centering on coaching, leadership, game analysis, injury, with particular emphasis on ironing out the club’s inconsistencies. Part of that review will be assessing what were legitimate excuses for the lack of performance putting in place concrete steps to improve the club.
Click to expand...
 
Good: TOUK FREAKING MILLER! Making the AA squad, having 16 games of 30+ possessions, being a genuine contender for the Brownlow if not for his suspension. Beating Collingwood at the MCG for the first time in club history in front of a hostile crowd and being able to chant GOOOOLD COOOOOAST in the dying moments and hear it echo around the MCG, Beating Richmond in a Thursday night thriller in front of a vocal VIC ARMY crowd with Ben King kicking the sealer in the dying moments, braving 8 degree weather and watching our SUNS beat the Giants for the first time since 2014, beating Sydney by 60 points up at Metricon and watching Kingy pile on 5 goals.

Anderson's overall development, Kingy taking the next step in his career by kicking 47 goals for the year a HUGE improvement from last year where he kicked only 25. He is breaking out as one of the best key forwards in the game, our backline in Collins, Ballard, Powell, Lemmens doing a great job in rebounding the football, Powelly and Ballard with their overhead marking and ability to read the footy to intercept all season was great to watch, Lemmens being a beast at shutting down the most dangerous forwards week in and week out was great (Dusty was his biggest scalp) Ellis providing much needed leadership and experience on the wing, Swallow being the fearless leader he has been since he first stepped through the doors of the club in 2010. Luko's effortless pinpoint accuracy and delicious foot skills leading to some mouth watering passages of play were a definite highlight. Greenwoods hardness at the footy, he was always at the bottom of every pack and providing tackles and clearances in every single game, he worked tirelessly all season until he was unfortunately struck by injury. Rowell coming back from multiple stints on the sideline building up his match fitness and durability and becoming the player we know he can be. Farrar looks like a genuine talent and find, his ability to break the lines is impressive and he has the footy smarts to make cutthroat decisions under pressure.

Bad: Our inability to close out WINNABLE games in Adelaide (Round 3) until Witta went down that game was ours for the taking - we kicked 5 goals in the first quarter to Adelaides 2 and brought the intensity the entire night I enjoyed driving over for that game, Carlton (Round 4) inexcusable loss our lack of accuracy bit us in the ass and our lack of polish in the final moments cost us the W, St Kilda (Round 8) we dominated the game for 3 quarters and fell asleep for the first 10 minutes in the 4th quarter but by the time we woke up it was too late to win the game another disappointing and inexcusable loss. North Melbourne (Round 14) yes this game was in Tassie but North Melbourne were still premature in finding their groove and we really let this one slip, luck didn't fall our way when we dominated possession in the final 3 minutes of this game with Hughy Greenwood kicking multiple behinds and our multiple forward 50 entries amounting to nothing in the end.

If you take these four VERY winnable games from losses to wins then we would've finished with 11 wins and 11 losses which would've placed us in 8th position and given us our first finals berth in club history. Do I think we would've gone far? No, most likely would've been a first round exit but it's the principle that counts - making the finals for the first time in club history and giving the players BELIEF and something to build towards heading into next season. In contrast we ended up finishing 16th! And ending up with the 3rd overall pick in the draft which I hope we can use on bringing in a ready made A grader!

Budarick, Witts, Rowell and Day going down early in the season really hurt us long term, four key pillars missing in action and their positions essentially irreplaceable. Greenwood doing his PCL late in the season also hurt our centre clearances and tackling pressure around the ground.

Dew! His inability to recognise and adapt to changing game plans was our biggest downfall, his desire to want to play conservative safe possession controlled football robbed us of the way that we naturally like to play as a team - freedom should've been given to the team to play to their individual strengths. When we would take the game on and run the ball through the corridor we were an incredible exciting team to watch. At times we were unstoppable and looked like one of the most dangerous teams in the competition but our reliance on playing slow and boring football made us predictable for oppositions to pick apart and made us one dimensional. Which is a real shame for a young, talented and stacked team we should've been taking the game on far more often but Dew rather opted to play "Safe" football which lead to us being exposed and having no real answers to teams who could pick apart our predictable and pathetic game style. I wish Dew coached in a way that focused on each of our players individual strengths and trusted them to execute what they are best at. If this happened more frequently we would've made finals and we wouldn't have been so inconsistent.

Having no real answer for Witts going down at Ruck. Smith did his best but AFL was clearly past him, he was far too slow with ball in hand and had so many holding the ball calls called against him. Burgo did a great job filling in at ruck but we needed a reliable second option at ruck but simply didn't have the answers.

Rory FREAKING Atkins: how on earth did this leech manage to secure a four year deal!? This move is quite comfortably the worst decision the club has ever made, he contributed absolutely nothing on field and is doing a mighty fine job of eating into our cap space which could've been used on someone worthwhile to bring in during this off season like Pendlebury, Dixon, Parker, Josh Kennedy (WCE), Talia etc which would all fill obvious voids for us in those various positions. What our club was thinking by bringing Atkins in on a $400,000 salary each season over 4 years is beyond me it will cost us valuable cap space which we should've used to attract an A grader or retain our young guns in Luko, Kingy, Ballard and Rankine. A mismanagement of the highest order.
 
Last edited:
CanYouFeelTheSunburn said:
Good: TOUK FREAKING MILLER! Making the AA squad, having 16 games of 30+ possessions, being a genuine contender for the Brownlow if not for his suspension. Beating Collingwood at the MCG for the first time in club history in front of a hostile crowd and being able to chant GOOOOLD COOOOOAST in the dying moments and hear it echo around the MCG, Beating Richmond in a Thursday night thriller in front of a vocal VIC ARMY crowd with Ben King kicking the sealer in the dying moments, braving 8 degree weather and watching our SUNS beat the Giants for the first time since 2014, beating Sydney by 60 points up at Metricon and watching Kingy pile on 5 goals.

Anderson's overall development, Kingy taking the next step in his career by kicking 47 goals for the year a HUGE improvement from last year where he kicked only 25. He is breaking out as one of the best key forwards in the game, our backline in Collins, Ballard, Powell, Lemmens doing a great job in rebounding the football, Powelly and Ballard with their overhead marking and ability to read the footy to intercept all season was great to watch, Lemmens being a beast at shutting down the most dangerous forwards week in and week out was great (Dusty was his biggest scalp) Ellis providing much needed leadership and experience on the wing, Swallow being the fearless leader he has been since he first stepped through the doors of the club in 2010. Luko's effortless pinpoint accuracy and delicious foot skills leading to some mouth watering passages of play were a definite highlight. Greenwoods hardness at the footy, he was always at the bottom of every pack and providing tackles and clearances in every single game, he worked tirelessly all season until he was unfortunately struck by injury. Rowell coming back from multiple stints on the sideline building up his match fitness and durability and becoming the player we know he can be. Farrar looks like a genuine talent and find, his ability to break the lines is impressive and he has the footy smarts to make cutthroat decisions under pressure.

Bad: Our inability to close out WINNABLE games in Adelaide (Round 3) until Witta went down that game was ours for the taking - we kicked 5 goals in the first quarter to Adelaides 2 and brought the intensity the entire night I enjoyed driving over for that game, Carlton (Round 4) inexcusable loss our lack of accuracy bit us in the ass and our lack of polish in the final moments cost us the W, St Kilda (Round 8) we dominated the game for 3 quarters and fell asleep for the first 10 minutes in the 4th quarter but by the time we woke up it was too late to win the game another disappointing and inexcusable loss. North Melbourne (Round 14) yes this game was in Tassie but North Melbourne were still premature in finding their groove and we really let this one slip, luck didn't fall our way when we dominated possession in the final 3 minutes of this game with Hughy Greenwood kicking multiple behinds and our multiple forward 50 entries amounting to nothing in the end.

If you take these four VERY winnable games from losses to wins then we would've finished with 11 wins and 11 losses which would've placed us in 8th position and given us our first finals berth in club history. Do I think we would've gone far? No, most likely would've been a first round exit but it's the principle that counts - making the finals for the first time in club history and giving the players BELIEF and something to build towards heading into next season. In contrast we ended up finishing 16th! And ending up with the 3rd overall pick in the draft which I hope we can use on bringing in a ready made A grader!

Budarick, Witts, Rowell and Day going down early in the season really hurt us long term, four key pillars missing in action and their positions essentially irreplaceable. Greenwood doing his PCL late in the season also hurt our centre clearances and tackling pressure around the ground.

Dew! His inability to recognise and adapt to changing game plans was our biggest downfall, his desire to want to play conservative safe possession controlled football robbed us of the way that we naturally like to play as a team - freedom should've been given to the team to play to their individual strengths. When we would take the game on and run the ball through the corridor we were an incredible exciting team to watch. At times we were unstoppable and looked like one of the most dangerous teams in the competition but our reliance on playing slow and boring football made us predictable for oppositions to pick apart and made us one dimensional. Which is a real shame for a young, talented and stacked team we should've been taking the game on far more often but Dew rather opted to play "Safe" football which lead to us being exposed and having no real answers to teams who could pick apart our predictable and pathetic game style. I wish Dew coached in a way that focused on each of our players individual strengths and trusted them to execute what they are best at. If this happened more frequently we would've made finals and we wouldn't have been so inconsistent.

Having no real answer for Witts going down at Ruck. Smith did his best but AFL was clearly past him, he was far too slow with ball in hand and had so many holding the ball calls called against him. Burgo did a great job filling in at ruck but we needed a reliable second option at ruck but simply didn't have the answers.

Rory FREAKING Atkins: how on earth did this leech manage to secure a four year deal!? This move is quite comfortably the worst decision the club has ever made, he contributed absolutely nothing on field and is doing a mighty fine job of eating into our cap space which could've been used on someone worthwhile to bring in during this off season like Pendlebury, Dixon, Parker, Josh Kennedy (WCE), Talia etc which would all fill obvious voids for us in those various positions. What our club was thinking by bringing Atkins in on a $400,000 salary each season over 4 years is beyond me it will cost us valuable cap space which we should've used to attract an A grader or retain our young guns in Luko, Kingy, Ballard and Rankine. A mismanagement of the highest order.
Click to expand...


Rory FREAKING Atkins..............I don't need to say anymore, that says it all.
 
Went well

King kicked 47 goals - second best goal record in suns history

Miller became a top flight midfielder

won 5 games at interstate venues

A few youngsters started to find their groove : Powell, Anderson, sharp, lukosius, king in particular.

Elijah got through and seems set for a big pre season. Feel like he’ll add so much next year.

we now have a young ruck prospect on the list.

went poorly
Injuries: rowell, Weller, witts, day, buderick, Greenwood missed big chunks

Rowell post injury: I’m sure a preseason will help but the lack of burst was slightly disconcerting

team selection sometimes baffling

Noncompetitivess for halves where we get out scores by 50+ points still happening.

Expectations
Would want to see us get to 9-10 wins at least
Fix those non competitive periods
Kick More goals..
 
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Agree with everyone’s comments so far but one of the biggest disappointments for me was not correctly utilising the expanded list that we were gifted..
we could’ve filled the bottom of the list with top state league players like Burgess,Collins,Corbett but opted for academy kids.. also picking a project ruckman who was never going to play in the mid season
 
robo_1 said:
Agree with everyone’s comments so far but one of the biggest disappointments for me was not correctly utilising the expanded list that we were gifted..
we could’ve filled the bottom of the list with top state league players like Burgess,Collins,Corbett but opted for academy kids.. also picking a project ruckman who was never going to play in the mid season
Click to expand...
Moyle would of been a good chance to go high second round at the national draft, taking him in the midseason was the right idea
 
Supersuns said:
Moyle would of been a good chance to go high second round at the national draft, taking him in the midseason was the right idea
Click to expand...

I agree getting him is good for long term future but when witts and conroy have acl smith coming off pcl day always injured in and out like a tampon there’s a poor list management gap.. passing on second mid season pick was a mistake IMO
 
Good:
Touk Miller’s rise. I think every year for the past 4 years, I’ve thought he had just about reached his ceiling and proved me wrong with his insane work ethic. Clearly works hard on his game and his weaknesses, can’t wait to see him as captain.
We finally have some genuine wingmen, feel like this has been a problem for a while but can’t wait to see Ellis and Sharpe line up in round one next year. Shame they didn’t get to play together much this year.
we’re building a really solid backline, I still think we need another CHB so Ballard can play third tall, but other than that they have kept us competitive this year despite the heat they’re under every game.
Noah Anderson had a number of games this year which has convinced me that he’ll be the best player from that draft. Cannot wait for him to start hitting the scoreboard like his draft days.

Bad:
Our forward line/set up/going into forward 50 is abysmal. Most of the time the ball would get put on kings head and don’t have the pressure to keep it in there. Most of the time, the ball came out faster than it went in. Desperately need CHF, Sam Day is just cooked.
Rory Atkins, I have no words.
Injuries to experienced players.
The whole ruck situation
Dave Swallow isn’t captain material, by all accounts he barely talks and if that’s the case needs to let his footy do the talking, which he doesn’t do anywhere near enough.
Rowell and Rankine. Rowell should have played a couple of VFL games first he just didn’t have the same ability to feed the ball out when being tackled like last year. I still think Rankine will be a super star, but from what I understand, mentally wasn’t in a state to be playing footy this year.
 
Good:
* Congrats to Harbs and Zac on great careers. Wishing them all the best.
* Touk Miller (an absolute break out season) and making the AA squad and team*
* 7 wins (3rd most in our history including some great wins over Richmond and GWS)
* King finding his feet with a career best year. He will only build on this
* Fiorini worked hard once got into the team and has been rewarded. Well done!
* Sharp putting behind a developing year in 2020 to have a terrific 2021.
* Finally a strong reserves competition to develop our players. To finish 14th in a 22 team comp is a great result
* A strong record in Victoria with a win at the MCG for the first time since 2017
* I think we have found Harbrow's replacement in Farrar. For a late pick, he has done a great job.
* Rowell coming back and getting some game time into him. Build on this and his confidence for a strong 2022.
* Wins against Hawthorn and Richmond in matches relocated from Metricon.
* Our most FTA games on Channel Seven for a while
* Davies showing some of the future in the final game
* We looked great when we took the game on and played with flare. We need to see more of this
* Our rucks battling it out despite losing Witts our MVP for the majority of the year
* Ainsworth coming back from the VFL with strong form
* Anderson's backend of the season was again strong.
* Some strong form on the road which was nice.

Bad:
* Being too inconsistent
* Injuries to key best 22 players
* Lack of confidence at times
* Losing games that we shouldn't have against Adelaide, Carlton, North Melbourne, Brisbane and St Kilda just to name a few
* Izak Rankine having second year blues
* Due to COVID losing some of our home games and our annual match in Darwin (I think we can really build a special partnership with the NT)
* MRO potentially costing us a Brownlow! No way that Touk should've got suspended.
* Mixed messages from the selection committee
* We need to go to the trade table and get a key back to support Collins and a key forward to support King
* Instable media reports about the culture at the club and coaches
* Rory Atkins a 'prized recruit' no where living up to the hype

Expectations and looking into 2022
If Dew stays, we need to be looking to charge up the ladder with the aim of making the finals. We need to find the consistency because when we play our best, our best matches it with top 8 sides but our worst is putrid. Confidence is a big thing I feel with our team. We need confidence across the board to play well. Let's hope we get our best 22 key players back from injury and have a solid 'injury free' 2022. We need to find more ways to goal not just King. Getting someone to help him is a must.
 

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Reflections on another frustrating year as a passionate Suns supporter.

Negatives.
*Horrid finish to the season after showing so much promise mid season ,to finish with a percentage of 76% simply horrible.
*List management- how does a team with the biggest list have no capable back up ruckmen or key position players.
We clear Peter Wright ( a Tall ) and pick up Rory Atkins REALLY .
I have always believed the most important person in your club behind the senior coach is your List Manager ,something we have never got right
in ten years.
*Too many players had ordinary years Bowes, Weller, Sexton, Rankin, McPherson, Smith, Atkins etc
*Our Academy is yet to give us the depth we were hoping for .Maybe just need more time to happen.
* Too many games we played slow boring football , whose fault coaches ,players or both ??
*Will Brodie -Staggered the coaches just refused to play him particularly after Greenwood went down injured.
Whether Will is good enough or not we never really gave him consistent opportunity to prove his worth.
Hope he gets a chance somewhere else .
Happen to live close to Will ,in the end we broke his spirit just like Scrimshaw Lyon and Wright.
Three top ten draft picks we cleared for a packet of chips.
*Lack of defensive pressure from our forwards was the worst in the league , mental as much as physical.
*Long term injuries hurt us badly, but lots of teams cop them.
* Stuart Dew - not convinced his the right man, players like him as a person but do they respect him as a coach,not sure.
Another ordinary season and the whole club will be in massive trouble.

POSITIVES
* Wins against Sydney , GWS, Richmond showed at our best we are capable of competing with most sides.
*Touk Miller outstanding performance , credit to himself.
* Will Powell , Sean Lemmens , Ben King took their game up a level.
* Anderson and Lukosius look ready to take that next step to being top quality players.
* Matt Rowell didn't play to his ability but survived physically , a big summer should see him return to some where near his best.
*Sharp and Farrer showed enough to suggest they could well be long term good players.
* Alex Davies was impressive in his first appearance .Would be a major boost if he continues to improve.
* Hopefully most of our injured players will be close to resuming early next year.

LOOKING AHEAd
* I would put all our draft picks on the table and see what we can attract.
* Absolutely vital we find a competitive ruckman,without one difficult for us to go forward with any confidence.Witts maybe a while away.
* Must attempt to pick up a couple of mature KPP , hard I know but desperately need.
* Would make Touk captain immediately .Swallow has been a wonderful servant of this club but due to a battered body hes days as a
midfielder a past him .HBF should see play for two or three more years .Witts needs to concentrate on getting fit again.
Miller is far more talkative and demanding than Swallow or Witts and is in the prime of his career.
* Season 2022 is a massive year for everyone at the club, we have the nucleus of a good team but lots needs to right for success to happeN
TOO ALL SUNS SUPPORTERS STAY SAFE AND KEEP SMILING
 
BEST AND FAIREST THIS WEEKEND

1 Touk Miller
2 Will Powell
3 Sean Lemmens
4 Jack Lukosius
5 Noah Anderson
 
hey guys, just posted this Touk Miller Highlights video on my Youtube Channel.
Come check it out and let me know what you think!
 

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