A disenchanted Rodney Eade expressed his frustration with his players performance in the aftermath of Gold Coast’s 37-point loss to Port Adelaide in the wet on Saturday night.
 
In his post-match appraisal, the veteran mentor conceded that the SUNS were not only beaten on the scoreboard and in most key indicators, but in attack on the ball and commitment to the contest.
 
Eade went further to suggest that a handful of players were disappointing in their hardness at the ball, especially in conditions that demanded a certain level of application.
 
“It was a bit disappointing. It was frustrating. I think we were beaten in a lot of areas,” Eade told reporters in his post-match press conference on Saturday night.
 
“I think a few players fatigued. There was probably half a dozen I was really disappointed in that didn’t give a yelp, which was disappointing. Probably in the contest, I thought they were harder in the contest than us.”
 
Eade was critical of the way his side moved the ball against the Power, suggesting that Gold Coast were too conservative with their decision making, electing to take safe kicks over better options that could have broken the game open.
 
In difficult conditions for skill execution, Port Adelaide cut the SUNS apart at different times with more fluent transition from defence to attack. Apart from Kade Kolodjashnij and Nick Malceski, Gold Coast weren’t capable of pulling the trigger when it was there to be taken.
 
“I just don’t think we were bold in anything we did. When we started to be bold with our ball movement we actually looked dangerous,” Eade said.
 
“But we got conservative, we made a couple of mistakes some bad errors and then we went back into our shell instead of being bold still. I thought bold at the contest – we weren’t either.
 
“I thought we made a lot of basic errors too. I know the wet ball, but even basic kicking errors I was disappointed.
 
“You don’t have to hit the target but just to be able to gain an extra ten or 20 metres. We kicked the ball 20 instead of kicking it 40. Just some basic errors like that.”