Are The Gold Coast Suns Already Rebuilding And Just Don't Know It Yet?

Inside the media centre at Spotless Stadium some time after the Gold Coast Suns had capitulated by 102-points against a far hungrier opponent in the Giants, coach Rodney Eade delivered his post mortem in his best Rodney Eade-esque performance. Eade press conferences, for the uninitiated, are usually straight forward made easier by his terse mannerisms and succinct tone; and at times it looks as if he could blow a fuse. In a different life Eade could have been a politician if it weren't for football, in that he's a good deliverer of bad news. And, on Saturday night, after the Suns' woeful and error-riddled match, he didn't flinch, remained unwaivering and responded truthfully, which helped paint a proper picture of what is happening with the 0-2 Suns.

A reporter asked Eade whether he thought his players "cared enough" and followed that up with "it happens when they win, they don't celebrate like other sides and they don't seem to burn like other sides." Given that the Suns have started the season with two unsettling losses, on the back of a 6-16 season the year before and 4-17 the year before that, it was a fair observation on a team that seems to lack cohesion that all teams strive to cultivate; that most good teams have built over many weathered years.

Eade later told the reporter that the Giants kicked 16 goals from turnovers, that his players dropped simple marks and missed targets by foot from 20-metres away how his younger players are quiet but they did feel the burn after their crushing Giants loss. Most coaches would say those things in frustration, perhaps anger; Eade said them but looked genuinely miffed as to how these things unfolded. He remained hopeful and optimistic that this flatness was a temporary flaw but it's hard to completely understand whether or not the Suns are just momentarily stale or whether they're slipping into rebuild territory and they just don't know it yet.

"There's no magic formula. You can't go down the street and buy some confidence from the shop," said Eade. "It's about doing some hard work and getting the basics right and then the wheel will turn. I've seen it many times."

In 2014, when the club hired Eade and his 363 games worth of experience, not to mention his 1996 losing Grand Final campaign wisdom as the Swans coach and his back-to-back preliminary finals involvement as a Bulldog, it seemed like the Suns had turned a corner. For the first time in their history they went 10-12 and finished in 12th place on the ladder. It's the best season the Suns have had to date. Eade brought stability, know-how, a harder edge, a fresh take on things and the players seemed to respond to his messaging. The Suns were trending up which added fuel to the notion that a Gold Coast team would eventually play finals and within a few more years could eventually win a premiership. They had the list to do it. Experts predicted it. We all felt it.

But in 2015 it all collapsed. The club recorded key injuries to Ablett Jnr. and O'Meara and 10 of their best 22 were sidelined. Then came the in-house sanctioned bans to Bennell, Matera and McKenzie for breaking team rules by partaking in a booze-filled night, which gave the impression that it fractured the group. The incident got unwarranted media attention and placed a microscope on a team that was, on paper, supposed to be taking the next step and playing finals. From the outside looking in it appeared that the Suns didn't take their football seriously. Eade would tell you – then and now – that, these circumstances can and will happen in any football city, and that the Suns do take their football seriously. But sometimes there's no sugar coating ill-timed optics. It's never a good look when your team is on the verge of a 4-17 season and you're front page news for undisciplined acts.

Good culture and close-knit teams take time to orchestrate. You need talent, maturity and luck and most likely, you need those three things clicking all at the same time to succeed. The Suns want to be the next Hawks. Instead, they are more like the 2015 Carlton unit that went 4-18 who spent a large part of that season trialing players that could fit and be part of the future and controlling discontented fans' expectations. It must be said, Hawthorn's dominance didn't happen suddenly nor was it unexpected. After winning the flag in 2008 they missed the finals the following year, then finished seventh, then third. In 2012 they finished first but succumbed to the Swans in the Grand Final. As history shows the Hawks won the next three flags.

It also must be noted that the Hawks won and lost with a core group of players that bled brown and gold, that had elite skill, that boasted a team-first mentality, that knew each other's game as well as their own. On their day It seems the Suns have the skill, the pace and the youthful athleticism, but they're missing that core group of hardened warriors, the kind that you get with age, momentous wins and heartache. With 28 players 24 years of age or younger, the Suns have youth overkill. Their future will be dependent on their kids: whether they evolve and become the players we are told they can be or are turned over for maturity. When the young out number the older veterans, it's hard to see how they can teach them how to play football and more importantly how to build culture.

The good news for the Suns is that they do have young talent, and young talent will eventually win you games. At the start of the season Eade sounded off on a number of players who he thought would make a name for themselves in 2017 and beyond. There's a new gun forward in Ben Ainsworth and a quick moving utility in Jack Scrimshaw. Will Brodie who is an inside ball winner is sure to grow into a prolific handler of the football and Jack Bowes is one of those wait-and-see players, but comes into the team as a thrilling Academy prospect.

Tom Lynch, 24, and Steven May, 25, are sharing captain duties. Ablett Jnr. is back after a season in rehab. David Swallow is also making up for lost time this season. And the addition of Barlow is surely only going to add depth to the experienced blue chips. But those pieces are going to take time to progress and sprout, gel and weld together. Time is the only sure thing we know about the Suns at the moment and it's hard to predict when the upside of youth will kick in. The Suns may be full of intrigue and great looking fragments, but they don't appear to be any closer to a finals berth than they were in 2014.