Australian Football

Gold Coast Reserves

When the North East Australian Football League was established in 2011 it consisted of an Eastern Conference and a Northern Conference. Each Conference had a finals series with the two premiers playing each other in the NEAFL grand final. Playing in the Northern Conference, Gold Coast reserves got as far as a semi final on debut in which they lost to Morningside by 75 points. The next season saw the Suns contesting a Northern Conference elimination final only to be blown away by Redland who won by 99 points. In 2013 the Suns missed the finals for the first time, but worse was to follow. For the 2014 season the competition was reorganised as a single division and the Suns lost all 18 of their home and away matches to slump to the wooden spoon. There was considerable improvement in 2015 as the Suns finished seventh (of eleven) after winning 8 matches, while the following season brought an identical win-loss record which was good enough on this occasion for sixth place (out of ten). In 2017 the Suns qualified for the finals in fourth place before downing NT Thunder by 39 points in an elimination final. A week later their season came to an end after they were comprehensively downed by Sydney Reserves in a semi final with scores of 21.16 (142) to 11.8 (74). The 2018 season brought a slump in form resulting in an eighth (of ten) place finish.