Brisbane and Gold Coast played in the “I’m not desperate yet but I’m getting there cup” on Saturday evening, also known as the Q Clash.
In the end, Brisbane got back to what they have done well and ultimately beat the Suns pretty easily. The Lions spent nearly 58% of the game in their front half, took about 100 marks, handily won clearance and contested ball, and held Gold Coast to 20 front half points.
It was the Brisbane formula from the last few years applied again to an opponent that simply could not go with them.
But why couldn’t Gold Coast go with them?
They are as good if not better than the Lions team that played on Saturday afternoon given the lack of Dayne Zorko, Hugh McLuggage and Keidean Coleman but were simply beaten.
Like Chris Fagan, Damien Hardwick has a formula. It worked for his Richmond dynasty and in a sense, it’s working for Gold Coast, but this Gold Coast team is increasingly looking like a tribute band to the Tiger dynasty.
They do the songs, they wear the wigs, but they just don’t have the magic of the originals. The Suns have a Dread Zeppelin vibe to them, and they look far away from finding the stairway to heaven.
The Hardwick principles are time in front half, chaos with disposal, pressure, turnover, and run. Historically, he’s been willing to sacrifice dominance around the ball.
For the season, the Suns are fourth in time in forward half, fifth in scores from front half, and second in metres gained. Also, strangely given the return of Matt Rowell, the Suns are 17th in clearance and 13th in contested ball.
It’s all Hardwick stuff. Technically, the Suns are doing the smoke on the water riff, but they aren’t Ritchie Blackmore.
Why?
The answer lies in personnel rather than structure. The Suns have more stars than the Richmond dynasty had but are lacking the kinds of grunt players (or stars that become grunt players) that made the Richmond dynasty run.
They don’t have the dirty work operators who can make the stars look good, and the stars they do have are just missing enough of what their Richmond counterparts had.
Take Josh Dunkley’s game on Saturday evening as an example. Dunkley only had 19 disposals and no goals, but time and again he got his hands to Gold Coast’s attempts to switch the ball or start advancing it, and had 21 pressure acts and 7 tackles. He got his hands dirty in a way that allowed Lachie Neale and Zac Bailey among others to run their occasionally obscene patterns.
Dunkley is a Paul Giamatti. He can be a star, but he’s so much better greasing the skids for the real stars to shine.
When a guy like Dunkley isn’t there or isn’t playing well, guys like Neale, Bailey and Will Ashcroft (though he was average again on Saturday) look selfish. When Dunkley plays like he did on Saturday, he’s a skeleton key for the team that allows Neale and Bailey to have 18 score involvements between them.
Jack Graham and even Trent Cotchin were that kind of player for the Richmond dynasty, freeing up Dustin Martin to essentially become Randy Moss and only play one side of the ball.
While Christian Petracca is having an elite year, there’s nobody in the Gold Coast midfield who does a similar role. Matt Rowell is the closest to it, but he’s too good not to hunt his own ball.
Gold Coast has no Paul Giamatti’s. They’re all scenery chewers.
This Suns team also generally lacks the forward pressure players of those great Richmond teams. Because of Hardwick’s thirst for territory, he loves to kick long to his key forwards and have the smalls either chase the ball when it hits the deck or pressure the defender who gets it. Gold Coast’s personnel limitations render that much harder than it was for Richmond.
If you look at the Gold Coast forward line on Saturday, and across the season, you see Ben King and usually another key forward. At their feet, you’ve got a few medium to smalls.
None of their medium to smalls, nor their keys, are elite pressure players. In theory it should be Leo Lombard, but his work rate defensively just isn’t an AFL standard yet.
Ben King is also part of the problem. He is one of the least impactful massive goalkickers that I can remember. He’s the Tom Mitchell of key forwards which should be impossible, but he’s managing it. Josh Treacy has kicked six fewer goals this year in one more game, but I can’t tell you how much I’d prefer to have him than King.
To the point, the 2017 Tigers had six players averaging at least one tackle a game inside 50 including Jack Riewoldt at 1.3. Gold Coast currently has three with Ben King averaging 0.2.
The Suns simply don’t recreate the kind of terror that Richmond instilled in opponents when they got the ball in their D50. Every Tiger, from Dan Butler and Jason Castagna to Jack Riewoldt and Tom Lynch in 2019 and 2020, moved like the shark from Jaws looking for something to eat.
The lack of game changing pace and effort at ground level inside 50 also shows up in Gold Coast’s ground ball game, particularly inside 50. While Gold Coast is 15th in inside 50 retention because of those dump entries that Hardwick loves, they’re only sixth in F50 ground ball gets with 16.
Richmond in 2017 led the league with 20.
Gold Coast also lacks an elite intercept and rebound defender. Sam Collins is a solid lockdown player but is forced to play outside of his ideal role in a more Alex Rance/Dylan Grimes game that he simply isn’t suited to.
While Collins is solid defensively and is a better 1v1 player, he doesn’t provide the kind of offence that Rance did as the number 1 defender. Alex Rance launched 1.6 scores per game from his 270 metres gained for 2017, compared to Collins’ 0.9 launched scores from his 170 metres gained this year. The succession plan of Uwland or Andrew isn’t there yet either.
Rance supercharged Richmond’s territory game in a way nobody at Gold Coast currently can.
On the surface, the Suns are doing Richmond things. Their statistical profile is just slightly shy of what the Richmond one was, and they have similar archetypes of players.
But they’re just missing enough to be the kids negotiating after Logan died in Succession.
They’re a tribute band.