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Opinion Vent & Offtopic

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Experimental said:
Unfortunately it was either Bock/Krak/Brown or total nobodies. No one in their right mind would have come to a new club with years of losses ahead of them just because they wanted a new start.

The only people we could have ever possibly attracted were players with issues who came for the money.

We got extremely lucky to have snagged Gaz. He's the exception.

And let's be realistic: we still haven't passed the phase of being unable to attract decent non-drafted talent. The only big fish we've caught was Malceski who came for the retirement cheque.

On and off field success will change that. Hopefully it's not too far away!
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Rischa and Harbrow have also been handy pick ups from the start.
 
kreglze said:
Rischa and Harbrow have also been handy pick ups from the start.
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Indeed they have been. Absolutely fantastic pick ups. But they were hardly 'stars' when they came to the Suns. Rischa has gotten better with age, and Harbrow has been a servicable backman in our 22 for years. I wouldn't put them in a high profile before joining the Suns though, but you're certainly right to mention them!
 

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TheSunGod said:
If Bocky didn't have that career ending injury we may well have made the finals in 2014 even after Gaz did his shoulder. He was the biggest loss we've had IMO.
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If we had Bocky would Steven May or Rory Thompson have emerged in the way that they have?
 
SUNS said:
If we had Bocky would Steven May or Rory Thompson have emerged in the way that they have?
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Maybe not as quickly but Bock would have been an awesome second or even third tall with his rebounding ability.
 
SUNS said:
If we had Bocky would Steven May or Rory Thompson have emerged in the way that they have?
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Who knows but he was also a good option up forward for us as well. Just having a player with his ability and leadership could have helped us snag a few more wins that year and since.
 
I was watching some show can't remember if it was Round Table, AFL Tonight, or Footy Show I believe Round Table. I think I heard a comment that the AFL will regret having two teams in Queensland.

I wanted to ask you guys who obviously are aware of the situation a lot better than I, are you concerned with a Gold Coast relocation? I see in the rumors board there is a post on GWS moving to Canberra by 2021 or something. Should we be concerned or is that just morons not knowing what they are talking about? Are we heading in the right direction?

Thanks guys.
 
TJ Hendricks said:
I was watching some show can't remember if it was Round Table, AFL Tonight, or Footy Show I believe Round Table. I think I heard a comment that the AFL will regret having two teams in Queensland.

I wanted to ask you guys who obviously are aware of the situation a lot better than I, are you concerned with a Gold Coast relocation? I see in the rumors board there is a post on GWS moving to Canberra by 2021 or something. Should we be concerned or is that just morons not knowing what they are talking about? Are we heading in the right direction?

Thanks guys.
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Nah GC will stay put. The AFL will always have two teams in Queensland, and the only way the GC would ever move is to another QLD location (Cairns, NQ, etc) - which wouldn't ever happen for two decades or more anyway. Suns are strong on the Coast, and it's always been a generational investment. We're only 5 years into our existence.

For the investment to finally pay off, we're waiting for the kids of today to be the parents of tomorrow. When the current crop of 5 - 10 year olds are old enough to have their own children in 15 years time, we then wait for those kids to grow up supporting their local Aussie Rules club. That's when we begin to analyse the success or failure of our club.

It's exactly the same as GWS.
 
Experimental said:
Nah GC will stay put. The AFL will always have two teams in Queensland, and the only way the GC would ever move is to another QLD location (Cairns, NQ, etc) - which wouldn't ever happen for two decades or more anyway. Suns are strong on the Coast, and it's always been a generational investment. We're only 5 years into our existence.

For the investment to finally pay off, we're waiting for the kids of today to be the parents of tomorrow. When the current crop of 5 - 10 year olds are old enough to have their own children in 15 years time, we then wait for those kids to grow up supporting their local Aussie Rules club. That's when we begin to analyse the success or failure of our club.

It's exactly the same as GWS.
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I had a big ol' essay written, but you've pretty much just summed up what I was trying to say (way more efficiently than what I had written, might I add hahah).

Would be a pretty big cockup if the AFL backflipped and relocated us or the Giants, after the amount of time and money invested.
 
Experimental said:
Nah GC will stay put. The AFL will always have two teams in Queensland, and the only way the GC would ever move is to another QLD location (Cairns, NQ, etc) - which wouldn't ever happen for two decades or more anyway. Suns are strong on the Coast, and it's always been a generational investment. We're only 5 years into our existence.

For the investment to finally pay off, we're waiting for the kids of today to be the parents of tomorrow. When the current crop of 5 - 10 year olds are old enough to have their own children in 15 years time, we then wait for those kids to grow up supporting their local Aussie Rules club. That's when we begin to analyse the success or failure of our club.

It's exactly the same as GWS.
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I have just started coaching again and for what it is worth every second kid has a Swans Guernsey down here in Sydney ( or shit hole as I prefer to call it) at training I am yet to see a single GWS Guernsey.
 
Iva Bigun said:
I have just started coaching again and for what it is worth every second kid has a Swans Guernsey down here in Sydney ( or shit hole as I prefer to call it) at training I am yet to see a single GWS Guernsey.
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It's an incredibly hard market to break into. The AFL hasn't really done itself any great favours by calling their Western Sydney club the 'Giants' (Americanised BS name) with ****ing bright orange as their colours. I personally love the colours, but they're... unique (good or bad think depending on how you look at it).

The Giants in Western Sydney is a whole new ballgame (lol) than the position the Suns are in. The Suns started their brand in a broken market plagued by failure with only one other club having remained "successful" in the Titans. Western Sydney has a massive migrant population that's evenly split between NRL and soccer, so breaking into that market is huge. Given the Gold Coast's large Victorian population and the existence of many junior AFL clubs (and Sharks), the early stage isn't quite as daunting.

Just wait until GWS makes finals and you'll start seeing some jumpers, I'm sure. Wait until AFL isn't a 'joke' sport, and the 'GayFL' remarks from kids start to disappear and then the Giants will prove fruitful.

Swans aren't winning a premiership any time soon IMO. As the Swans begin to drop off, wait for the bandwagoners to start following the Giants.
 

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Experimental said:
It's an incredibly hard market to break into. The AFL hasn't really done itself any great favours by calling their Western Sydney club the 'Giants' (Americanised BS name) with ******* bright orange as their colours. I personally love the colours, but they're... unique (good or bad think depending on how you look at it).

The Giants in Western Sydney is a whole new ballgame (lol) than the position the Suns are in. The Suns started their brand in a broken market plagued by failure with only one other club having remained "successful" in the Titans. Western Sydney has a massive migrant population that's evenly split between NRL and soccer, so breaking into that market is huge. Given the Gold Coast's large Victorian population and the existence of many junior AFL clubs (and Sharks), the early stage isn't quite as daunting.

Just wait until GWS makes finals and you'll start seeing some jumpers, I'm sure. Wait until AFL isn't a 'joke' sport, and the 'GayFL' remarks from kids start to disappear and then the Giants will prove fruitful.

Swans aren't winning a premiership any time soon IMO. As the Swans begin to drop off, wait for the bandwagoners to start following the Giants.
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No doubt your right, at the moment it's mind boggling to see more kids in Rabbitohs gear at an AFL training session than in giants gear. Might be different out west
 
Experimental said:
It's an incredibly hard market to break into. The AFL hasn't really done itself any great favours by calling their Western Sydney club the 'Giants' (Americanised BS name) with ******* bright orange as their colours. I personally love the colours, but they're... unique (good or bad think depending on how you look at it).

The Giants in Western Sydney is a whole new ballgame (lol) than the position the Suns are in. The Suns started their brand in a broken market plagued by failure with only one other club having remained "successful" in the Titans. Western Sydney has a massive migrant population that's evenly split between NRL and soccer, so breaking into that market is huge. Given the Gold Coast's large Victorian population and the existence of many junior AFL clubs (and Sharks), the early stage isn't quite as daunting.

Just wait until GWS makes finals and you'll start seeing some jumpers, I'm sure. Wait until AFL isn't a 'joke' sport, and the 'GayFL' remarks from kids start to disappear and then the Giants will prove fruitful.

Swans aren't winning a premiership any time soon IMO. As the Swans begin to drop off, wait for the bandwagoners to start following the Giants.
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I remember when the Giants first released their colours/jumper and the conclusion was that they had just basically stolen the NRL's Wests Tigers colours:

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Winning over west Sydney is going to be much harder than winning over the Gold Coast. As you pointed out Experimental, the markets are vastly different in that a lot of modern Gold Coasters hail from Victoria while a lot of westies in Sydney are either born and bred New South Welshmen or weren't born in Australia. You really can't compare the two when the 2011 census showed us that over 35% of the Greater Western Sydney residents were born overseas (30% from non-English speaking backgrounds) while 28% of the Gold Coast's population were born overseas (10% coming from non-English speaking backgrounds).

So what does that tell us? It tells us that about 20% of the Gold Coast population hails from the UK or NZ while most of the remaining 10% hail from Asia. So they're working with 90% residents who speak English as their first language and 70% of those residents are Aussies. I can't definitively say how many of the 70% Aussies were born in QLD, NSW or VIC because I don't have those stats but I would guess it'd be something like 35% QLD, 20% NSW, 15% VIC.

So, if that's correct, what kind of numbers are we actually looking at? 20% New South Welshmen is about 110,000 and 15% Victorians end up being about 80,000 people. So let's just say for argument's sake that everyone from NSW is rugby league/union inclined and every Victorian is Aussie rules inclined. Then you have the Queenslanders on the Gold Coast who are much harder to work out. Despite what some media personalities may say about the GC being league heartland, Aussie rules historically has a large following in the city. The Southport Sharks were very successful in the Brisbane league while there was no Gold Coast rugby league equivalent success in the BRL. I'm not sure a Gold Coast union team even existed at the higher levels until recently so I'm not going to include them in this.

We're going back to the days before national leagues when local tribalism was alive. Southport were dominant in the local GCAFL (8 flags in 20 years) and it was a big moment when they were permitted entry into the QAFL in 1983. The newly named Southport Sharks were given little chance of actually competing against the Brisbane sides, many of which had already existed for over 50 years. The Sharks thrived in the conditions and the underdog tag was quickly forgotten when they claimed the 1983 QAFL premiership in the their first season! Can you imagine the kind of statement that would have been back in the early 80s? The GC had a sports team they could be proud of. Then just three short years later the Gold Coast was selected as the host city for a new VFL team - the Brisbane Bears.

Norm Dare, the man that led the Sharks to their '83 QAFL flag, would serve as the Bears assistant coach for several seasons and even became the senior coach in 1990. Dare also coached the Queensland state team through the 80s-90s. The Sharks acted as a feeder/reserves team for the Bears over many years and the white knight Reuben Pelerman that actually kept VFL/AFL footy alive in Queensland was of course originally a Southport Sharks man. Then you have Southport juniors like Ashcroft and Kennedy (both now with the Suns) who went on to have great careers with the Bears/Lions.

Anyway, after that little history lesson, I hope people understand why there is a strong Aussie rules following on the Gold Coast with the local Queenslanders. Surprisingly, in my experiences of living on the Gold Coast, a lot of Queenslanders living on the GC aren't from Brisbane which probably helps the AFL's case as well.

It can be a fickle market but the benefits of generational change are obvious. To put it in perspective, the Bears lasted six years on the Gold Coast and the Suns are entering their sixth season in the AFL now. No such history of Aussie rules in west Sydney exists if anyone is wondering.
 
I forgot to add that the majority of the Aussie rules supporters on the Gold Coast already had a team prior to the Suns being established. So a lot of the current Suns supporters are either turncoats (harsh but true) or have adopted the Suns as their second team. It's the kids of five years ago that won't know a world without the Suns when they eventually become adults and have their own children. Some of the most passionate future Suns supporters haven't even been born yet. That's what we mean when we say the generational change.

In saying that, it's the current supporters that are developing supporter culture for future generations. There are certain supporters that have a reputation for abandoning their club when things aren't going so well but it's probably fair to say the Suns fan base has been pretty loyal to date.
 
Yet another Herald Sun article tonight concerning our young players being poached. It claims the Hawks will target O'Meara and of course they throw in the standard Prestia to Richmond or Melbourne. Sick of reading the same old rehashed garbage full of speculation only. Anything to sell a paper I guess.
 

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Oh hey guys, I think it's about that time where I resurface on here, Much to the chagrin of probably everyone ;)

I spent the off-season running fantasy football leagues, playing with layzors and wondering where my copies of NCAA Football 13 & 14 have gone. Thanks for asking :D
 
So with the whole revalation that up to 11 Collingwood players were on the gear during the offseason, and two clubs including one interstate team had higher results (allegedly), do people think that we are obviously one of the teams with a higher amount (as some in the media and on the main baords have rumoured)? I mean the infamous Dixon instagram post raised some questions, and it was apparently the first year where such strict guidelines were in place so some of the boys may have been caught out. Would obviously be super disappointed if it were true, but where theres smoke and all that. What is everyones opinion on the whole 'saga'?

http://www.afl.com.au/news/2016-03-25/afl-statement-on-illicit-drugs-policy


EDIT: should mention, is a Slobbo article so who knows how factual it actually is
 
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Young_Guns said:
So with the whole revalation that up to 11 Collingwood players were on the gear during the offseason, and two clubs including one interstate team had higher results (allegedly), do people think that we are obviously one of the teams with a higher amount (as some in the media and on the main baords have rumoured)? I mean the infamous Dixon instagram post raised some questions, and it was apparently the first year where such strict guidelines were in place so some of the boys may have been caught out. Would obviously be super disappointed if it were true, but where theres smoke and all that. What is everyones opinion on the whole 'saga'?

http://www.afl.com.au/news/2016-03-25/afl-statement-on-illicit-drugs-policy
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From where I sit, and that's a bl**dy long way from anything OZ, I think it's all about selling news and Robbo needs to do that to keep his job. Why else would only Collingwood get mentioned and he not disclose every other Club that's supposedly involved.....it'll get Eddie fired up and be in the news for days. Robbo is such an under achiever, riding on every one else's shirt tails......I don't rate him at all.....
 

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