A historic night in their seven year history occured as the Gold Coast Suns scorched the Hawthorn Hawks by a club record winning margin of 86 points surpassing the 83 point victory over the GWS back in 2013. It was also the first victory against the AFL’s recent powerhouse club, Hawthorn, in their nine meetings.
Led by recently maligned former skipper, Gary Ablett, who accumulated 36 total possessions to be amongst the best players on the ground along with two goals and ten clearances, the Suns started fast by jumping out to a three goal lead before the Hawks gradually worked their way back into the contest in the second half of the opening stanza to trail by six points. The Hawks short possession game attributed to a ridiculous 23 additional marks more than the Suns but only one goal resulted from inside their forward 50 entries from the stop start plays. Suns’ goalsneak Jack Martin snaring two majors.
The Suns burst into the second quarter with the running Aaron Hall slotting a long goal from outside 50 in the opening 20 seconds to re-establish the Suns early game dominance which followed with another goal by Hall five minutes later as Jack Martin proving to be a menace slotting his third goal. Former Sun, Jaeger O’Meara, who defected to the Hawks in the off-season, was the lone goal scorer for the Hawks as they trailed by 26 points at the main break. Numerous opportunities wasted by the Suns in the second quarter as they could only convert on three of their forward 50 possession entries (25%) as no goals were scored in the last remaining eleven minutes of the first half.
A rampant third quarter by Gold Coast broke the game wide open as the Suns’ creativity engineered by their small forward brigade proving too elusive and fast for the sluggish Hawks with Brandon Matera (3 goals), rookies Brayden Fiorini (2 goals) and Sean Lemmons (1 goal) inflicting much of the damage in their ten goal quarter haul to lead by 66 points at the last change.
A lack of cohesion and stagnate midfield drive from the Hawks was evident as the Suns continued to make space, force turnovers with an equal spread of fleet footed contributors which included Adam Saad’s explosive dash from the back pocket taking on two Hawks who couldn’t hit that third gear as the speed demon Saad stepped into a fourth gear to unleash his disposal at midfield as one of the many highlights of the Suns crushing runaway win. Adam Saad only played ten games last season. The boost in the midfield with the return of David Swallow who missed a large chunk of the last two seasons due to a knee injury, collected 34 disposals including 9 clearances. In the final quarter, Brandon Matera cut loose once again to reap three more goals to finish up with game high, six goals. Best on ground: Jarrod Harbrow, Gary Ablett, Michael Barlow.
The Suns get a winnable matchup with Carlton next week while Hawthorn has a difficult matchup with the Geelong Cats, a clear top 8 contender. Both teams will need wins to stay in the top 8 hunt, with the Hawks in particular in danger of waving the white flag early this season, while the Suns showed life for the first time in three contests.
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