The Gold Coast SUNS’ most passionate members attended a forum on Tuesday Night to hear first hand from the club regarding recent on-field concerns.



CEO Andrew Travis, Senior Coach Rodney Eade, GM- Football Marcus Ashcroft and Elite Performance Director Justin Cordy made themselves available to answer questions from members.



To begin the evening, Travis thanked the passion SUNS members had shown over the growth of the club.



He also reiterated the winning culture the SUNS were determine to ensure was deeply engraining within the club for years to come, something that had been addressed at previous members forums.



“We want to be successful for the long term, but before we can be successful we have to develop a consistent winning culture, this is our focus right now,” he told attendees.



The playing leadership group, Gary Ablett, Tom Lynch, Steven May and Dion Prestia, also voluntarily attended the evening to speak with members to commence the night.

Thank you @GoldCoastSUNS and the leadership group for the meeting. Feeling the club is in good hands. — Tom Catt (@naturalfooter) May 24, 2016



Prompted by an audience question, May elected to take the microphone and share his thoughts on the mateship central to the bond each player experiences at the SUNS.



“You can’t question our mateship and the brotherhood we have at the club,” May said.



“The last contract I signed I had offers to go elsewhere and at the end of the day it came down to the fact I couldn’t leave my teammates.



“We all came here as 17, 18-year-olds and have gone through some tough times.



“The easy option would be to go to a Melbourne club that is playing finals.

@GoldCoastSUNS great to be involved in the members forum last night. Thanks for the opportunity and the insight into the Clubs future — Mish (@mish11267) May 25, 2016

“But if you have been here and gone through what we have gone through you see the light at the end of the tunnel and it’s going to be so much more rewarding.



Members were also given a rare insight into the data captured by the strength and conditioning team, lead by Cordy.



Soft tissues injuries, the category strength teams aim to limit, are down by almost half of what they have been in previous seasons. The first soft tissue injury of the year was Matt Rosa in round seven, a figure Cordy stressed was significant and likely a result of excess stress load from the previous round against Geelong.

Eighty per cent of injuries currently sustained by Gold Coast SUNS players are collision based, brought on during AFL matches.



Effort was another topic brought up by various members, one Eade was glad to address.



“We shouldn’t construe making mistakes, loss, against effort,” he explained.

About 250 members were at the @GoldCoastSUNS forum last night. Member, Gary Hendrick, says coach Rodney Eade answered questions well. #afl — Elise Kinsella (@EliseK53) May 24, 2016





“Sometimes when they make a mistake, it looks like a lack of effort. I know the GWS game is a probably a really good example. We were criticized for a lack of effort…but our GPS data was the highest working game for the whole year, the highest volume, the highest run. I was quite pleased for about 70 or 80 per cent of the game with the effort”



“It’s perceived as a lack of effort but it wasn’t.”



To conclude the evening Eade reminded the audience “we are a club for the people.”