Rodney Eade has been at the Gold Coast for nearly two months and has been impressed with the playing group’s insatiable desire to learn.
 
The former Sydney Swans and Western Bulldogs coach became the GC SUNS’ second senior coach in October and since the beginning of his time in charge, Eade has educated his young squad on what is required at the elite level.
 
Training standards and intensity have been the two key focus areas Collingwood’s former director of football has instilled in the playing list at Metricon Stadium. And these philosophies are practiced religiously, not simply preached.
 
“I must admit I’ve been really pleased that they are a group that want to learn, they want to improve,” Eade said at the SUNS’ Christmas open training session on Wednesday.
 
“So everything that we’ve put into place as far as requests, expectations, standards and certainly the football work as well, they’ve really responded really well.
 
“They’re eager to learn; they’re eager to get better. The feedback I got from the players was really positive about what they want to achieve and where they want to go.
 
“They seem to be a really well driven group, they do want to succeed and they do want to be coached hard and they do want to improve, so from a coaching point of view its really pleasing.”
 
Eade believes the young group he has adopted has a large amount of improvement in them. But, this is partly due to the fact the list is so young – the second youngest average age in the competition.
 
With such an inexperienced young core group, the SUNS coach is hoping to raise the training standards as the club strives to reach September for the first time.
 
“I think just being a young group, I expected this, but there is a lot to learn football-wise and there’s a fair bit to improve on their standards of training and the intensity that’s required at AFL level,” he said.
 
“A lot of young players don't know what they don’t know. The core of the group is 22 or younger so they don’t know a lot in many ways.
 
“That’s one thing that we’ve had to talk about consistently and pleasing from that is the players want to drive that, that they want to actually train harder, a bit more intensely and get their standards right.”