The Gold Coast Bulletin

Coast lock in NEAFL finals

Young Suns prepare for pressure test

- TOM BOSWELL AND TERRY WILSON

THE Gold Coast Suns NEAFL side has squared the ledger with fellow expansion club GWS and cemented their place in the finals.

The Suns led at every break in Saturday’s Round 18 game against the Giants to win 15.13 (103) to 10.12 (72) at Metricon Stadium.

Winning a NEAFL premiershi­p isn’t Gold Coast’s priority, instead their focus is on developing talent so they are prepared for the AFL.

But Suns coach Stephen Daniel said the chance to play more games in a high pressure finals campaign would help the young players coming through the list.

“Not that we worry too much about it but it’s always good to be playing finals obviously,” Daniel said.

“Part of developmen­t is winning so you obviously have to get that winning culture.”

The win put the fifth-placed

Suns four wins ahead of sixthplace­d Aspley with three rounds left, giving them an unassailab­le margin to ensure they will finish in the top six.

Gold Coast have a bye this week and will return to play the Brisbane Lions the week after. Trent McKenzie (32 disposals), Josh Schoenfeld (three goals), Mitch Hallahan (32 disposals), ruckman Dan Currie and draftees Jack Bowes (26 disposals) and Will Brodie (28 disposals) were among the Suns best.

“We were happy with the way we played,” Daniel said.

“The first quarter we thought we started really well and then we felt the Giants controlled the footy pretty well.

“They had 40 unconteste­d marks so that was an area we had to fix at quarter time so we went man-on-man and it worked for us.”

Meanwhile, the only good news for Southport from another tough away trip to Darwin was a heartening secondhalf “fightback” against the Northern Territory Thunder at TIO Park.

The Sharks were smashed 17.9 (111) to 2.3 (15) in the first half but at least showed some character by outscoring the hot home side by 11 goals to three in the second term.

The final scoreline was 20.13 (133) to 13.8 (86) with clever small forward Rob Clements kicking five and debut-maker Tom Howard three.

Best, though, was promising teenager Connor West, from the Labrador Tigers junior system.

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