Suns in the Media - Part II

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Where is Mac? Actually, more players missing - Tsitas, Powell, Day.

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‘We the North’: Hardwick channels the Toronto Raptors championship saying​

Speaking at the Star Gold Coast to more than 150 Suns members, staff and special guests, keeping them all captivated and hanging onto every word the three time premiership coach said.

“Take the Toronto Raptors for example, a team with uncanny similarities to us,” Hardwick said.

“They were founded in 1995 as part of NBA’s expansion into Canada, the only NBA team in a non-basketball centric state.

“For 10 seasons, they were consistently under performing as a franchise, losses, crowd attendances, general buy into the bigger picture.

“Considered in the league as a team that just made up the numbers.

“But in 2016, they decided to flip the narrative, they turned the negative perception into one of strength an unity.

“How? They embraced they were considered outsiders and built a strong brand and mantra off the back of this mentality.”

Three years after, the Raptors won the NBA championship in 2019.

“It quickly became the Raptors versus everybody else and it quickly came down to three simple words,” Hardwick said.

“We The North.

“They understood they had to bring this mentality for every 48 minutes they stepped on the court.

“Win, lose or draw, the opposition quickly realised that when they stepped foot into Canada, into Toronto, into the Raptors stadium, they were playing the north.”
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Jirik13 said:
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www.goldcoastfc.com.au

SUNS announce 2024 leadership group

The Gold Coast SUNS has finalised its 2024 leadership group, with Touk Miller and Jarrod Witts to once again lead the club as co-captains.
www.goldcoastfc.com.au www.goldcoastfc.com.au
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Basically confirms Witta should become our most capped skipper at some point this year and may even hit 100 games as captain:

Most AFL games as Suns captain
  • Gary Ablett Jr - 96 games
  • Jarrod Witts - 85 games*
  • David Swallow - 58 games
  • Touk Miller - 35 games*
  • Steven May - 35 games
  • Tom Lynch - 29 games
 
GC2015 said:
Basically confirms Witta should become our most capped skipper at some point this year and may even hit 100 games as captain:

Most AFL games as Suns captain
  • Gary Ablett Jr - 96 games
  • Jarrod Witts - 85 games*
  • David Swallow - 58 games
  • Touk Miller - 35 games*
  • Steven May - 35 games
  • Tom Lynch - 29 games
Click to expand...
Good. Witta deserves to be our most capped captain (Until Touk eventually breaks it)

As for the missing boys

Tsitas - Picked up an extra fitness session
Powell - Daddy duties
Day - Past his bedtime
 

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Touk Miller, Gold Coast Suns captain (26.02.24)
SEN Breakfast

 
His first senior AFL game as coach of the Suns will be against Richmond, a team that knows the game he is trying to instil in the Suns better than the Suns players do.
Ahead of that clash, this masthead spent two days embedded with the Suns in team and recruiting meetings, at training, and interviewing staff and the triple-premiership coach.

The clear impression now is of a club being moulded in Hardwick’s image. The Suns are looking like Richmond II. Which is a good thing.
In a candid assessment of the last year and the job ahead, Hardwick:
  • Dismisses the idea that his new job at the Suns was a done deal when he left Richmond, saying “that’s society. I think we always look at the conspiracy theory, whether it’s COVID, JFK (the US president’s assassination) or whether it’s landing on the moon, there’s always going to be people that lend itself to that side.”
  • Has been re-invigorated on the Gold Coast by being “back on the tools” actually coaching a game plan.
  • Has given Suns game-breaker Bailey Humphrey the Dustin Martin-type licence to put himself wherever he thinks he can be damaging.
  • Reinforced that the Suns have to get past talk and gimmicks and “win some f---ing games.” Finals should be an expectation.


  • Richmond 2.0​

    There was already a Richmond flavour to the Suns before Hardwick arrived. The former Richmond captain and champion player Wayne Campbell, who was also an assistant coach under Hardwick at Tigers, is the Suns’ head of footy. Craig Cameron, who had been the head of footy that signed Hardwick to coach Richmond, is now the Suns’ list manager. Former Tigers player Brad Miller is also a Suns assistant coach.

    But the arrival of Hardwick has made that Richmond-ness more pronounced. Hardwick has brought in as senior assistant coach his former premiership player Shaun Grigg, whom Hardwick declares a certainty to one day be a senior coach.

    Sitting in recruiting and team meetings, listening to Hardwick’s language, looking at the style of player he wants and what roles they play, it is all unmistakably Richmond. Or more accurately, it is all unmistakably Hardwick. He is bringing to the Suns what he brought to Richmond.
    The roles he has for Suns players could almost be substituted in on a Richmond whiteboard. There’s Humphrey as “Dusty”, the dangerous matchwinner licensed to deploy himself wherever he thinks he can make an impact (don’t confuse that with being as good as Martin – not yet anyway). Brayden Fiorini and Sam Clohesy as Kamdyn McIntosh or Jack Graham, the role-playing, hard-running wingers. Alex Sexton has switched to defence to be a counter-punching running defender and the more dynamic Lachie Weller will assume this creative Bachar Houli-Daniel Rioli role when he returns from injury. Darcy Macpherson is being trialled as a Kane Lambert type.
    Hardwick already has an emerging star full-forward in Ben King and an enviable midfield group of talent that plays a combative style of game.


    The way they defend in a rolling zone, the way they move the ball and play for territory more than possession, the way they are trying to set up defensively even when attacking – it all looks like a Hardwick game. The type of talent he wants is there to be able to play the game in the way he wants them to play. How long it takes for it to become intuitive will be critical.

    After the practice game against the Brisbane Lions on Thursday night, some at the Suns were initially flat they had not done better. The sober reality is it was the first time they had ventured out with a new style of game and it was against mature, finely tuned opposition that played in last year’s grand final – and who look hungry and desperate.
    It is also worth recalling that in his first year at Collingwood, after his first nine rounds in charge, Craig McRae had only four wins, but his team went on to make the preliminary final. Last year, in his first season in charge Adam Kingsley’s Giants had only four wins from the first 12 matches – but also made a preliminary final. Both were instilling a Richmond-heavy game style. Change takes time.


    ‘Let’s not fit a square peg in a round hole’​

    Hardwick smiles as soon as Bailey Humphrey’s name is mentioned. He knows he is poised to say something inflammatory and wonders if he should check himself. He goes ahead anyway.
    “I think [Humphrey’s] got the potential to be quite special,” Hardwick said, selecting his adjective carefully.
    “He is a potential matchwinner. He’s a doer, if that makes sense, and the more instruction you give him the worse player he is, so he just plays.

    “I’ve told this to Bailey: ‘wherever you reckon you are needed, you go’. I look at him and I think you know what, you know better than me. He’s one of those players. He just sees the game really well. He’s got a good understanding ... he needs to put himself where he is needed.
    “That’s what good players do. Let’s not fit a square peg in a round hole, on the day if you think you can impact the game there then go there.”
    That takes a certain type of maturity and confidence at his young age, to walk into the centre square and kick out a player such as Touk Miller. There are precious few players like that. Martin is one, Christian Petracca, Toby Greene, Patrick Dangerfield and Jordan De Goey are others. Humphrey isn’t as good as any of them yet, but he plays as they do and has the licence they do.



    No more gimmicks​

    Hardwick is clear that the Suns “became a footy club” under former coach Stuart Dew and his team, as well as Cameron, Campbell and CEO Mark Evans.

    “The players stopped leaving, which is so important, you know, and we hopefully are going to benefit from that in the not too distant future.

    “What our next challenge is, we start, you know, no more gimmicks. Let’s just win some f---ing games. That’s always going to take us where we need to go. And that’s what it’s going to start, bringing crowds and people and players and staff to our footy club, no question. We’ve got to get the job done.”
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www.theage.com.au

Hardwick on why he left Tigers, feeling reinvigorated and the Sun with potential to be ‘special’

After more than a decade at Richmond, Damien Hardwick has begun a new chapter at Gold Coast. He talks to Michael Gleeson about being reinvigorated by his new club, the young Sun with a licence to do a “Dusty” and why he doesn’t regret being open about his family life to build connections.
www.theage.com.au www.theage.com.au
 
Good to read the lads were disappointed with the opening performance against Brisbane and putting it into context trying a whole new system against the 2nd best team of the AFL.

Another stern test against GWS this week to try and get the system going.
 
kreglze said:
Good to read the lads were disappointed with the opening performance against Brisbane and putting it into context trying a whole new system against the 2nd best team of the AFL.

Another stern test against GWS this week to try and get the system going.
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These things take time. It's not like a switch can be flicked overnight, so maybe it takes half 5-6 games. But the more they play in this new game plan, the better they'll adjust.
 
sunsofanarchy said:
That's good for Tsitas, that he's doing that, but he needs to show it in games
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Sorry that was mostly a tongue in cheek joke following on from the jokes about Mac not being able to get an Uber.

It being past Sammy Day's bedtime was a joke also.
 
Jen2310 said:
www.theage.com.au

Hardwick on why he left Tigers, feeling reinvigorated and the Sun with potential to be ‘special’

After more than a decade at Richmond, Damien Hardwick has begun a new chapter at Gold Coast. He talks to Michael Gleeson about being reinvigorated by his new club, the young Sun with a licence to do a “Dusty” and why he doesn’t regret being open about his family life to build connections.
www.theage.com.au www.theage.com.au
Click to expand...
I’m pretty happy with Blue Dream and Pink Kush but if Dimma sees Fiorini as our version of McIntosh and DMac as Kane Lambert, well I’m going to have to get a new script.
 

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Suns in the Media - Part II

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