The Gold Coast SUNS are in a far better position heading into the 2017 season than they were 12 months ago according to senior coach Rodney Eade.

After a challenging two seasons at the helm, the veteran mentor says the club is set-up ‘pretty good’ less than six weeks out from its first JLT Community Series pre-season game.

“My first year was probably a few issues we had to iron out and last year was mainly injuries, but we think we’ve recruited extremely well,” Eade told The Big Sports Breakfast on Tuesday morning.

“We had a great trade period so got four players in from other clubs and obviously set us up for the draft as well.

“At the moment we’ve only got three players in injury rehab so we’re in a lot more positive spot than we were last year, enthusiasm’s high and training’s going well at the moment.”

WATCH: 2017 Begins

The SUNS were able to build major momentum off-field towards the end of last year with young guns Callum Ah Chee and Peter Wright both signing contract extensions to stay on the Gold Coast.

Eade is confident there will be more positive announcements to be made on that front in the coming weeks.

“It’s interesting though. We had those two players at the end of last year but all our talented younger players want to re-sign,” he said.

“We had Callum Ah Chee and then Peter Wright is a big part of our future. Touk Miller is not far away.

“We’re confident Jack Martin and Steven May will sign in the next month so all of our markers and our signs we look for are really positive at the moment.”