If you read through the newspapers this morning, you'll find a smattering of scathing comments about the AFL new boys, the Gold Coast Suns. Yes it's true that they got hammered by 20 goals, yes it's true that against Carlton they didn't look particularly up to scratch but there are several things that they can take away from this.
For a new club entering the competition, they're always going to find it difficult against teams which have had full rosters which have bedded in over several seasons. You can't honestly expect a side to do brilliantly out of the blocks.
Cast you minds back to 1987. The AFL had expanded with less than a stellar result into Sydney, and the newly formed Brisbane Bears took to the park. In their first season they did manage to win 6 games and avoid the wooden spoon but it was always obvious that their lack of experience was on show.
The following season in 1988; in Round 12 they came up against the side who wopuld be champions that year Hawthorn and managed a paltry 2.5 (17) all up.
The Gold Coast's effort at the weekend although they lost, still meant that they scored 7.10 (52); that in itself isn't a large score but considering that at the end of the first quarter they were only 1.1 (7) meant that the wind was taken out of their sails right from the start and so you could say that they sort of recovered a bit.
The Gold Coast sporting 12 players making their AFL debuts were never going to be a match for Gibbs, Murphy and Curnow who together utterly destroyed the Suns' midfield and spent the whole match simply feeding their forward line with free entries into the 50.
Basically this match was a totally inexperienced side up against a well-oiled machine which has only thus far been bettered by last year's champions Collingwood in terms of points scored. The real measure is if the Gold Coast can do better than the Brisbane Bears did in '87 and win more than half a dozen games over the season.
One game does not a season make unless it's that last game in September and even then as we saw last year, it still might not.
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