SUNS HAPPY TO WATCH AND LEARN Hardwick going back to future
New Gold Coast Suns AFL coach Damien Hardwick is using footage from his premiership-winning time at Richmond to help his players understand the system he hopes will deliver the same success.
Hardwick won three premierships with the Victorian team in 2017, 2018 and 2020.
The Tigers are now playing with a new game-style under coach Adem Yze but Hardwick is hoping to mirror what he did at Richmond after joining Gold Coast at the end of 2023.
Suns co-captain Touk Miller said the players were confident they would be ready to execute Hardwick’s vision from Opening Round.
Speaking at the AFL’s Captain’s Day in Melbourne, Miller said one of the best ways to learn had been watching vision of Hardwick’s Richmond, and he had no issue with the source material coming from another club.
“You watch a few things where Dimma is using Richmond’s clips, but that makes a lot of sense – it’s his game plan and his system, so the only way he can show that and express that to the group is by using that,” Miller said as the Suns prepare to play Richmond in Opening Round on March 9.
“I’m sure he’s refined and tweaked a few things that are more suited to us, but in saying that I feel like we’ve got a group that can execute his game plan to a tee, and he believes that as well. It makes us full of confidence that we’re ready to roll out with what he’s taught us.”
Miller, known for his animosity towards Brisbane and in particular the Lions’ former captain Dayne Zorko, said Hardwick’s great friendship with Lions coach Chris Fagan from their time together at Hawthorn would do little to ease tensions between fierce rivals on the field.
“They’re in the coaches’ box, we’re in the field … I think it won’t have too much in it,” Miller said.
“In the short time I’ve known Dimma, I definitely know he doesn’t like to lose, so I imagine on game day he’ll enjoy the rivalry.”
The Suns skipper said he still disagreed with his controversial one-match suspension for an alleged “squirrel grip” on Zorko, which had initially been cleared by the MRO before Zorko questioned the decision on radio and the AFL eventually charged Miller with conduct unbecoming.
Asked whether he wanted to see the rules clarified to avoid another process like his this season, Miller said it wasn’t his place to weigh in.
“Sometimes I reflect on that and wish I hadn’t been suspended, but there’s only so much you can do,” he said.
“It turned out to be out of my hands – I kind of moved on from that, I don’t have too much of a view on where that goes next.”
More than five years after he called out then co-captains Tom Lynch and Steven May in a players-only meeting as they planned to leave the club, Miller said he was “incredibly proud” to now form part of a stable core of senior players heading into 2024.
He said Ben King’s two-year contract extension last week, after gun midfielder Sam Flanders signed on for four years in September, indicated how invested players were in the club.
“I think it just makes me proud to be a Gold Coast man, the fact we now feel we’ve created an environment where players want to grow and be a part of where we’re going,” Miller said.
“It shows in blokes committing to the club again.” the