There is a cracking movie to be made about how thousands of young men sent to fight a pitched battle were left stranded on a beach with little support and seemingly no hope while the generals back at headquarters tried to come up with ways to salvage their mission.

Dunkirk? I gave it four stars, Margaret. What did you think?

But this movie is called Gold Coast Franchise and is based on the failed missions of the many clubs sent to that region in a doomed attempt to conquer the hearts and minds of the locals.

Yes, sport is not war and the comparisons are odious, etc.

But in the sheer frustrating futility of the many attempts to establish professional sports franchises on the Gold Coast, you wrack your brain trying to think of better comparisons.

The list of those rugby league, Australian Rules, basketball, football and baseball teams who tried and failed to entrench themselves on the sunshine strip is long: Gold Coast Blaze, Gold Coast United, Gold Coast Seagulls, Gold Coast Gladiators, Gold Coast Aces, Gold Coast Rollers, Gold Coast Cougars, Brisbane (in their Gold Coast era) Bears and Gold Coast-Tweed Giants.

They came, they saw, they got a good tan and (if they beat the liquidators) a handy pay cheque. Then they disappeared in Australian sport's Bermuda Triangle.

Which brings us to the incumbents, the Gold Coast Titans and the Gold Coast Suns, who have had weeks that don't fill you with confidence that the NRL and AFL is on the verge of doing what no other team has done in south-east Queensland: thriving.

The Suns have now parted ways with AFL coach Rodney Eade. ( AAP: Julian Smith )

The similarities between the Titans and Gold Coast Suns' current plight and their structures are remarkable and, in that regard, equally disturbing.

After five straight defeats, the struggling Suns sacked their respected veteran three-club coach Rodney Eade. The appointment of his replacement will be sold as a ''new beginning'' — the third such recalibration in the seven-year history of a club whose existence is based solely on the AFL's deep pockets.

After three straight defeats, including a record 54-0 home field drubbing by the Broncos, the Titans were considering whether they should sack their respected veteran three-club coach Neil Henry. But such is the club's tragic history the next coach could walk to training across the Tweed River and still struggle to perform miracles.

The Suns' multi-million dollar signing Gary Ablett is reported to want to return to Geelong. Ablett's personal performance for the Suns has been excellent, even if multiple absences in the past two seasons have caused murmurs about his resilience and dedication.

But Ablett, a well-liked but elusive figure, has not become the instantly identifiable Gold Coast icon the club hoped would boost its profile and attendances. Rather, he is now cast as just another homesick itinerant worker — Geelong's prodigal son yearning to return to a heroes welcome.

The Titans' multi-million dollar Jarryd Hayne has been, as through much of his career, sporadically brilliant and occasionally disappointing. Like Ablett, the continued links with his former club, Parramatta, make it difficult to perceive him as a son of the Gold Coast.

Even less so when it was revealed Henry was not as keen to recruit him as the club's marketing men.

Titans players show their dejection after the 54-0 home drubbing at the hands of the Broncos. ( AAP: Dave Hunt )

Regardless of Hayne and Ablett's performances and loyalties, the idea of a single fly-in fly-out champion providing salvation for the Gold Coast teams is fatally flawed.

Only sustained success will generate the exposure and, possibly, incite the kind of local passion both clubs have tried to engender — which brings us to the other similarity between the Suns and Titans, the chief executives with the task of defying history, and perhaps even common sense.

Like politicians sending their best negotiators to troubled hot spots, both the NRL and AFL have dispatched respected leaders to the Gold Coast. The Titans' Graham Annesley is a former New South Wales Sports Minister. The Suns' Mark Evans helped mastermind Hawthorn's recent dynasty and was the AFL's football operations boss.

If Annesley and Evans can't find the key to making their clubs successful and, in turn, entrench support from the locals, who can?

And that, of course, is the proposition successive leagues and franchise owners have failed to ask — or just blithely ignored — when attempting to establish teams in what they consider a well populated and prosperous region bursting for a team to call its own.

Perhaps nobody can. Perhaps the Gold Coast, as viewed by an executive in an office in Sydney or Melbourne thumbing through Bernard Salt's latest demographic data, doesn't exist in reality the way it appears on paper.

What is beyond dispute is there are two Gold Coasts. As you travel north on the Pacific Highway, turn right and you are on the strip of golden beaches that is not merely a playground for tourists.

In its magnetic attraction to local athletes, and the trouble they routinely encounter, it makes Kings Cross seem like Luna Park.

Broncos player Alex Glenn (right) celebrates with try-scorer Corey Oates in Brisbane's belting of the Titans. ( AAP: Dave Hunt )

Turn left, however, and you are in a real and thriving community with housing estates now spreading well into the hinterland beyond Robina. New schools are being built, sports fields are fully populated on weekends, dispelling the itinerant reputation of the nearby Surfers strip.

Does the fly-by-night nature and lack of corporate headquarters in the Gold Coast's pleasure centre negate the potential of the growing community to support a professional team?

Is there something about playing on the Gold Coast that inhibits performance — beyond even the well-reported cases of illicit drug use?

They are the kind of questions those operating teams in the region loathe. Yet no one has provided the only compelling answer: building a popular, economically viable Gold Coast team with a winning culture; one where the club song is not drowned out by the air raid sirens.

For more on Rodney Eade's sacking and a look at the major sports stories of the week, watch Offsiders, Sunday 10:00am on ABC TV.