New recruits embrace new roles

Pleased with the impressive results at yesterday’s gruelling 2km time trials, the Gold Coast SUNS have shifted their focus on perfecting the two facets of the game that may see them shoot up the ladder – the team’s offensive and defensive structures.

The GC SUNS are exercising the belief that practice-makes-perfect; ensuring that the crucial game element is embedded in the minds of every player on the list.

GC SUNS assistant coach Dean Solomon stressed the importance of making sure players on the list are aware of their role, should the chance come for players to be called upon for senior selection.

“We’re currently just going back and refining certain structures, making sure that our total playing list is completing across it should the opportunity arise for some of these players to be selected in the senior side.”

“They really can’t afford to not know what their role is when it comes to executing a certain structure… so right now it’s just going back over and really stamping it into their brains so they know exactly what to do in certain scenarios.”

The former Essendon premiership player did acknowledge that the coaching staff couldn’t truly determine how well the playing group had grasped the modified structures until they faced an AFL opposition - their first chance coming next month when the GC SUNS host last year’s Grand Finalists Hawthorn and QClash rival Brisbane in the NAB Cup round robin at Metricon Stadium.

With a handful of new recruits and draftees arriving at the club, Solomon said that the club was working tirelessly to ensure that their new faces were up to scratch with the club’s recent structures.

“Some guys will have had the advantage of being in the AFL system for at least 12 months and therefore have a much better understanding of the structures we’ve had in place.”

“Ozzie [Leigh Osborne] hadn’t seen or heard what we had done prior to coming to the club, so the first few days with him were spent on educating him and getting him up to scratch.”

“Now he’s a lot more confident about the role we’d like him to play… which now puts his mind at ease during a game situation because he’ll know what to do.”