GC SUNS coach Rodney Eade believes improvement this season will come from the way the players adopt and live by the standards he has brought to the club since his arrival in November.
 
The veteran coach won’t put a cap on his expectations this season, but Eade is confident his men will improve on their previous outputs since the SUNS’ inception in 2011. He declined to predict how many games the AFL’s 17th franchise would win in his first season in charge, nor would he forecast a ladder position come seasons end.
 
Speaking on Melbourne radio station SEN 1116, Eade admitted the young SUNS had embraced his football philosophy well during the early months of his tenure on the Gold Coast, but the playing list still has a lot of areas for improvement according to the 56-year-old.
 
“Probably not expectations about where we’ll end up or how many wins or where we’re going to be on the ladder; more about the standards – what’s expected as an AFL player,” Eade told SEN 1116 on Thursday afternoon.
 
“The way we’ve got to train, the way we’ve got to prepare, what we do off-field to be able to challenge each other.
 
“We’ve only got five or six players above 25 years of age so we’re obviously a very young group as everyone knows. But there’s quite a good profile of age of players 21, 22, 23 who have played 40, 50, 60 games, so there’s still a bit to go.
 
“There’s still a bit of education, football-wise, but certainly the intensity of training and being able to lift your standards up, which I must admit the players have embraced pretty well, they want to learn and they want to work hard.
 
“But there's still a bit to go.  We’re still a young group, I’ve got no doubt we will improve this year, where that takes us I’m not too sure.”
 
The SUNS appeared destined for a maiden finals berth two-thirds of the way through last season, but due to a variety of circumstances that have been well documented; the side fell short of its first taste of September.
 
Eade suggested all sides would be aiming to play finals football no matter where they finished last season, but refuted the belief Gold Coast’s absence from the finals in 2015 would be a failure.
 
“All expectations for every team would be as high as you can and be to play finals footy,” Eade said.
 
“If you’re not with that expectation - and I know some teams are down the bottom are very young and maybe it’s just about improvement - but I think you’ve really got that expectation, that’s healthy. I think we should have our expectations high.
 
“Whether that’s a failure or not, I’m not too sure that’s going to be right because there’s obviously going to be circumstances why we don’t and why the reasons are.”