Where have the leaders gone? May exit highlights crisis at the Suns
Related Story: Tom Lynch tells Gold Coast he's leaving, Suns take away AFL captaincy Related Story: 'I'll smash them in court': Suns boss warns draftees who won't play on the coast
The nightmare that the Gold Coast Suns have dreaded has arrived, with Steven May becoming the second co-captain in 11 weeks to officially declare he wants out of the club.
When you include a certain Gary Ablett last year, that makes three captains gone in two seasons.
If losing one is a misfortune and losing two looks like carelessness, I'm not sure what Oscar Wilde would have said about a third departure, but it may not have been complimentary.
Talent walks out the door at Suns
- Josh Caddy, end of 2012 — Geelong
- Maverick Weller, end of 2013 — St Kilda
- Harley Bennell, end of 2015 — Fremantle
- Charlie Dixon, end of 2015 — Pt Adelaide
- Jaeger O'Meara, end of 2016 — Hawthorn
- Jarrod Garlett, end of 2016 — Carlton
- Dion Prestia, end of 2016 — Richmond
- Gary Ablett (ex-captain), end of 2017 — Geelong
- Adam Saad, end of 2017 — Essendon
- Brandon Matera, end of 2017 — Fremantle
- Tom Lynch (co-captain), end of 2018 — Richmond
- Steven May (co-captain), end of 2018 — Melbourne
It all feeds into the narrative of a club that has wasted its opportunities, a club that much of the rest of the league and its fans apparently cannot wait to see sent to Tasmania or rubbed out of existence.
Clearly, when you compare Gold Coast to its fellow expansion team, GWS, the story is not a positive one.
The problems are many and varied — from a lack of facilities in the early days, to arguably flawed strategy and so on.
The Suns opted to go for the biggest headline, putting all their eggs in the Gary Ablett basket.
By the simple metric of wins and finals appearances, the gamble may not have paid off, but could you have asked much more from the Little Master?
He carried the club on his shoulders for much of its first seven seasons — he was their star player, their main drawcard, although not perhaps the most natural leader, except by example.
The thinking was that the superstar would lead a young group of talented players to the finals, where everyone wants to be. It didn't work out that way.
You can blame the location of the club on the Gold Coast, a place that has proven a graveyard for professional sport teams in a number of codes over the years.
The coast was, at once, extremely off-Broadway in AFL terms, but also full of temptation for the Suns' most valuable commodity, its players.
You can question the club's decision-making, such as the trading away to Brisbane of Dayne Zorko — now Lions captain — who has spent much of his career trying to remind the folk at Carrara of the error of their decision.
There are also queries about the culture at a Suns club that allowed some players to go off the deep end — like Harley Bennell — or couldn't even keep home-grown Queenslanders who were finally beginning to realise their potential — like Charlie Dixon.
Eight years on the Gold Coast
- 2011: 3-19, 17th (last)
- 2012: 3-19, 17th (of 18)
- 2013: 8-14, 14th
- 2014: 10-12, 12th
- 2015: 4-17-1, 16th
- 2016: 6-16, 15th
- 2017: 6-16, 17th
- 2018: 4-18, 17th
* Win-loss record (draws where applicable) and season finish
Then there is the case of young gun Jaeger O'Meara, who Tim Watson once claimed could be the best-ever AFL player.
The Suns had O'Meara in mind as the cornerstone of the team's midfield for a decade, but his fragile knees kept him off the field of play for the best part of two frustrating seasons.
He then sought the exit door and left, not bound for a return to Western Australia but for Hawthorn, where he has performed better and more often albeit with continued injury problems.
Some question the choice of inaugural coach in Guy McKenna — who had one season in charge of Claremont in the WAFL and then time as assistant coach at AFL level — compared to GWS's choice of the vastly-experienced Kevin Sheedy.
Despite the talent in the Suns' squad, the playing group has not been able to get Gold Coast into the finals once — compared to the mix of talent at the Giants [a team a year younger than the Suns], who this year were a game away from making it to a third straight preliminary final.
The go-home [or at least go-south] factor called many — Josh Caddy to Geelong, Dion Prestia to Richmond, Adam Saad to Essendon, Gary Ablett to the Cats, Tom Lynch to the Tigers and even Territorian native Steven May eventually landing with the Demons.
If you add it all up, it is a litany of woe.
Ablett injury the fork in the road for Suns
But despite ALL of this, it is arguable that the worst fate to befall the Gold Coast Suns in its eight years of existence so far was a simple tackle by Collingwood's Brent Macaffer on Ablett on the far wing at Carrara in round 16, 2014.
It left the Suns' superstar skipper clutching his shoulder in agony as he made his way off the ground.
The Suns held on to win that game against the Magpies, but there is little doubt that it proved a "sliding doors" moment for Gold Coast.
The team was sitting inside the top eight with seven rounds to go, needing another three or four wins to crack it for September action for the first time.
Without Ablett, however, the younger players may have lacked the talent, or the belief — or both.
The Suns — who had won seven of their first nine games to sit as high as equal second on the ladder at one stage — lost six of their final seven games to finish a disappointing 12th.
If Ablett doesn't get injured, the imperious form he was in suggests he would have won his third Brownlow Medal, and led the Suns to the promised land of September football for the first time.
That would have provided belief, bought the club time and potentially opened the door for more big recruits. Some might say the Suns have never recovered from the failure to make it in 2014.
If captains leaving clubs were a familiar story, we wouldn't be talking as much about the revolving door at the Suns.
But it's not a regular occurrence, so they stand out — just remember the furore when GWS convinced Western Bulldogs' skipper Ryan Griffen to head north at the end of 2014.
Ablett gave up the captaincy for the 2017 season before engineering a return home to Geelong at the end of that year.
This put more pressure on the likes of co-captains Lynch and May to hold things together — and both have now opted to shift to teams with a much greater chance of success.
You can argue that their decisions to leave are driven by self-interest, given their positions at the club — Ablett's too, although his family's history at Kardinia Park and the need to be closer to home following the death of his sister provide compelling reasons for his return to the Cats.
But the changed realities of life in the AFL under free agency [even though May is not actually a free agent] is that the days of staying with a struggling club through loyalty are largely over.
If a player really wants to leave, there's not much teams can do to stop them.
So, what's the solution?
There are many suggestions that have been made, some helpful, some less so.
A move to the Apple Isle would likely be either cosmetic, or another leap into the dark.
This would involve either taking substantially the same list and hoping a change of scene and the support of locals would turn things around, or ripping things up and starting afresh — which would press reset yet again and lead to another long wait with no guarantee of success at the end.
There has been talk of the reintroduction of the controversial COLA [cost of living allowance] payments or other assistance to help newer clubs compete with rivals in keeping hold of and attracting players.
But the experience of the past few years shows that if players are good enough, the extra money will only keep them at a club for a certain period of time.
Eventually, without success, in most cases the cream of the crop will be picked off by teams that can offer as much or more money to bring them to Victoria.
The Suns have a host of top draft picks in one of the highest rated drafts in recent memory, but unless those picks land 10 year elite players like Jack Lukosius or Izak Rankine from South Australia AND those players actually stay at Carrara, it wont mean a lot.
In the end, there is only one incredibly obvious and even more incredibly difficult answer — the Gold Coast Suns have to find a way to win more games and crack the finals.
It's not that winning solves everything, but for the Suns of this world, it is a vicious circle. You can't win games until you get better players.
But you can't hold the better players and get the ones you need in until you start winning more.
There isn't an easy fix for this, but unless the AFL plans to walk away from the Gold Coast, something has to be done.
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