Australian Football

Match Report

The Gold Coast Suns have moved into the top six with a convincing win over GWS at Carrara on Saturday afternoon. The Giants got away to a good start in the match when big Jonathan Patton held off Matthew Warnock to take a one-handed mark and kick a goal but things turned ugly for the AFL's newest team soon after that. The Suns kicked the next six goals to lead by 25 points at quarter time and were never headed.

GWS put up a reasonable fight in the second term, kicking four goals to the Suns' two to cut the margin at the long break to 17 points but another big quarter from the Suns in the third term saw them out to an even six goal lead at the final change and they coasted home to win by 40 points.

As always the Suns were brilliantly led by the "Little Master", Gary Ablett who had 30 disposals and 11 tackles and kicked one of the goals of the year, an amazing twisting and turning effort, in the second term. The Suns were also well served by Jaeger O'Meara (30 possessions, 10 tackles) and Tom Lynch (five goals and eight marks), while for GWS, Callan Ward (32 touches, five tackles), Adam Tomlinson (23 possessions, eight marks) and Heath Shaw (27 disposals and three marks) were fine contributors.

With four wins and two losses, the Suns are in unfamiliar territory in sixth place on the ladder. They will need to be at their best to maintain that place when they take on fifth-placed North Melbourne at Docklands next Sunday. The Giants meanwhile have slipped to fourteenth, with two wins and four losses, and have two tough weeks to come. They will host top-of-the-ladder Port Adelaide next Saturday before travelling to Perth to take on West Coast the following week.

GOALS
Gold Coast: Lynch 5; Hall, Rischitelli, Matera, Ablett, Stanley 2; Swallow, Shaw, Broughton, Prestia, Day
GWS: Cameron 4; Patton, Hoskin-Elliott 2; Tomlinson, Tomlinson, Coniglio, Lamb, Kennedy

BEST - SPORTAL.COM.AU
Gold Coast: Ablett, O'Meara, Kolodjashnij, Prestia, Harbrow, Swallow, Lynch
GWS: Shaw, Tomlinson, Ward, Coniglio, Hampton, Treloar

BEST - AFL.COM.AU
Gold Coast: Ablett, Lynch, Swallow, O’Meara, Kolodjashnij
GWS: Shaw, Hoskin-Elliott, Cameron, Patton, Ward

COACHES' COMMENTS
Guy McKenna (GCo): We've certainly got some numbers to go through the midfield. Just for consistently competing we've still got to understand when to go long and when to go short. They're certainly getting better at that but we're not fully there quite yet. The effort's there. They're competing hard and that polish will come.

Leon Cameron (GWS): I thought they probably dominated the last 20 minutes of the first quarter. We probably had a couple of shots on goal that could have put a bit more scoreboard pressure on them but I don't think that was a big difference in the game. [The forward line with the three talls] is going to be a work in progress. It's going to take time. We like playing three tall forwards and we'll keep progressing down that track.

SUBSTITUTES
Gold Coast: Jack Hutchins on for Timmy Sumner in the third quarter.
GWS: Tomas Bugg on for Tom Boyd in the third quarter.

UMPIRES: Burgess, Findlay and Armstrong

TELEVISION BROADCAST: Fox Footy

COMMENTATORS: Matthew Campbell, Brad Johnson, Tony Shaw, Cameron Mooney