Afer Saturday’s shock two-point loss to Brisbane to kick off the 2017 season, many have written off the Gold Coast SUNS’ year already and based purely on the first 20 minutes of the game, it’s not an unfair assessment.

But would you put a line through Greater Western Sydney after they were handed a 56-point thrashing by Adelaide in round one? The Giants, heavily favoured to win this year’s premiership, were made to look second-rate by the Crows at times including a 10-minute period in the third quarter where the home side slammed through six unanswered goals.

Footy is an interesting game, where anything can happen. Not just week in, week out, but over the course of a long season.

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Remember, the Western Bulldogs’ road to the premiership in 2016 included beating West Coast in Perth, reigning premiers Hawthorn at the MCG and the heavily favoured Giants at Spotless Stadium before taking down the Sydney Swans.

The SUNS showed what they are capable of after the half-time break in the QClash, booting 11 of the last 15 goals. And let’s not forget the final JLT Series game, where Gold Coast stunned a full strength Bulldogs outfit to open up a 49-point lead before eventually being overrun in the final term.

Eliminate the lapses from Gold Coast’s game and they can compete with anyone in the competition.

“There’s always positives. (Like) the second half, to come back from 45-points down. But it’s the start that made us get so far behind,” defender Adam Saad told SUNS TV on Saturday night.

“If we didn’t have that start we could’ve gone a long way to winning the game.

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“It’s not the end of the world, we’ve got 21 more weeks to go and hopefully we can start our season next week.”

Gold Coast travel to Sydney in round two to face GWS with the odds heavily stacked against them. But the SUNS aren’t going to Spotless Stadium just to put in a competitive effort, they’re going down there with the objective of taking home the four premiership points.

“It starts on the track. The Tuesday session and the Thursday session, we have to train with intent and just the enthusiasm that we have been in the whole pre-season,” Saad said.

“They made the prelim last year. We’re not just going there to play footy and give great effort, we’re going there to win.”