By half-time it shaped as one of the greatest upsets in the modern era.
A spirited first-half of football from Gold Coast saw Guy McKenna’s upstart team issue an ominous warning to the rest of the competition; the SUNS should no longer be considered easy beats.
The visiting 22 held a handy 11-point lead over the eventual 2013 AFL premiers, with rising defender Rory Thompson stamping his claim as a future All Australian after keeping Hawthorns’ star forward Lance Franklin to just one goal by the second break of play.
It was 12th v. 1st at the home of football, with Gold Coast having stretched the scoreboard margin to as many as 17-points in the third quarter, and never looked out of place.
But it was the Hawk’s hardened experience and toughness that proved to be the difference marker for Alistair Clarkson’s men, with Sam Mitchell (36 disposals) and Jordan Lewis (31 disposal) standing up to the challenge when Clarkson needed them most.
The on-field marshals engineered the Hawk’s third quarter revival, with Shaun “Silk” Burgoyne also kicking three goals in the deciding quarter of football to spark the Hawk’s spirited chase.
While the AFL powerhouse went on to close out the match in the fourth by adding five more majors to their scoreboard tally, much of the talk following the match was that the AFL world were now anointing the SUNS a top-eight threat for years to come.
Small forward Aaron Hall stamped his mark with a career-best five goal performance, while Gary Ablett was his usual best, the skipper picking up 37 touches and three goals for the afternoon.
Dion Prestia also continued his rich vein of form with 32 possessions.
Hawks coach Alastair Clarkson had nothing but praise for Gold Coast in his post-match press conference.
"Gold Coast took it up to us, and full credit to them, but we just didn't play with the type of endeavour," he said.
"We didn't tackle and put pressure on the Gold Coast side enough in the first half, and we allowed them to control the ball far too easily."
Gold Coast SUNS coach Guy McKenna was also pleased with his team's performance.
"We spoke to the boys about this being a great examination throughout the course of the week, playing against Hawthorn, a 7-1 side," he said.
"We thought we'd made some progression over the course of the season so far.
"[We wanted] to test ourselves and we wanted to test Hawthorn, and I thought for the majority of the game we did that."
Selected Teams
Scores
HAWTHORN 4.5 7.6 13.8 18.10 (118)
GOLD COAST 3.3 9.5 10.6 14.8 (92)
GOALS
Hawthorn: Franklin 5, Burgoyne 3, Roughead 3, Grimley, Breust, Bailey, Gunston, Mitchell, Hodge, Puopolo
Gold Coast: Hall 5, Ablett 3, Lynch, Prestia, Brown, Matera, Broughton, Swallow
BEST
Hawthorn: Burgoyne, Simpkin, Mitchell, Bailey, Stratton, Lewis
Gold Coast: Ablett, Thompson, Prestia, Hall, Matera
Injuries
Hawthorn: Nil
Gold Coast: Lonergan (hamstring), Brennan (knee), May (quad)
Substitutes
Hawthorn: Sam Grimley subbed off for Taylor Duryea
Gold Coast: Jesse Lonergan (hamstring) subbed off for Luke Russell at half-time
Reports: Nil
Umpires: Bannister, Ryan, Schmitt
Official crowd: 28,112 at the MCG
