After appearing to turn the corner against Geelong last weekend, the Gold Coast SUNS' performance on Saturday night against Greater Western Sydney comes down to a lack of effort according to veteran midfielder Michael Rischitelli.

The SUNS stand-in-captain was one of the few players to not have his colours lowered in the 66-point loss to the Giants at StarTrack Oval in Canberra. The former Brisbane Lion gathered 31 disposals, nine clearances and seven tackles to continue his brilliant patch of early season form.

Rischitelli described Saturday night’s bitterly disappointing performance as ‘chalk and cheese’ when compared to the previous week's gallant loss to the Cats at Simonds Stadium. A game where a spirited SUNS outfit should have walked away with the win after dominating all the key indicators.

“It just goes to show, we didn’t bring the effort tonight as we did last week and that’s the result we get,” Rischitelli told SUNS TV.

“From just little things… not putting your head over the ball, not communicating well enough, chalk and cheese from last week to this week.

“So we’re just going to get our recovery done properly, go through the review – pretty thoroughly I would think – and then get ready for next week.”

The Brisbane Lions in QClash 9 on Saturday night present Gold Coast with an opportunity to arrest a poor start to 2015. The local rivals have also begun their year in similar fashion, losing their opening four games to anchor them to the bottom of the ladder.

With a seven-day break between games, Rischitelli said the SUNS would get a chance to redeem themselves next weekend at Metricon Stadium.

“That’s the beauty of footy, it's all hurting and not feeling the best. But we’ve got to go back to the drawing board and have a good week on the track and we get another opportunity this week,” Rischitelli said.