Continuity is a crucial element in football. The best performing teams typically enjoy a level of seamlessness that doesn’t disrupt team balance or cohesion. On the other hand, struggling teams usually lack a strong dose of continuity. Wholesale changes occur weekly, and the casualty ward looks like something out of an episode of Grey’s Anatomy.
 
The injury plague that has assaulted the Gold Coast SUNS in the opening two months of this season isn’t quite at crisis status – stamp that label to it if there comes a time where there isn’t 22 fit players available for selection. But it has undoubtedly had an enormous impact on performance.
 
In Tasmania last weekend, Rodney Eade used player No. 38 and No. 39 against Hawthorn in Andrew Boston and Keegan Brooksby. 39 players after just nine games is an astronomical number that doesn’t bode well for the club or the individual. Coaches and players constantly praise the importance of continuity, but it is something that has evaded the majority of the list in 2015. Only three players have played every game this season: Kade Kolodjashnij, Touk Miller and Michael Rischitelli.
 
To give some context to the SUNS injury toll, ladder leaders Fremantle have used just 26 players across nine rounds. The Dockers have made the least amount of changes in the competition this season, with Sydney ranked second lowest with just 27 players used. Fremantle haven’t lost a game this season and the Swans have lost two and sit third on the ladder. Continuity translates to performance.
 
Gold Coast host Sydney and Fremantle in the next fortnight at Metricon Stadium; the difference in the sides campaigns thus far couldn’t be more stark. With so much class sitting on the sidelines for the SUNS at the moment, the gulf will never be clearer than in the coming two weeks.
 
The gulf in experience and class in the midfields will never be more blatant with the Swans possessing an embarrassment of riches in the middle of the ground with Dan Hannebery, Luke Parker, Josh Kennedy, Kieran Jack, and Jarrad McVeigh. The Dockers onball brigade comprises of Nat Fyfe, David Mundy, Michael Barlow and Lachie Neale.
 
The tide will eventually turn, but it must never be underestimated how important continuity is in football. Without it, your chance of sustained success diminishes by the week. With Gary Ablett and David Swallow set to return following the bye, the SUNS have an opportunity to build some continuity in the midfield alongside in-form trio Tom Nicholls, Rischitelli and Mitch Hallahan.