For the first time in 15 years, the SUNS will run out tonight onto Optus Stadium as one of eight teams remaining in contention for an AFL premiership.
With a slice history just hours away, SUNS Media have taken a look back at the club’s history in post-season action across the journey.
AFLW – two finals, 0-2
It took only a matter of games for the SUNS to crack through for its first AFLW final after joining the competition in 2020. Under the former conference-style system, Gold Coast earned the right to take on raging hot flag favourites Dockers at Fremantle Oval in an Elimination Final. Paige Parker will go down in history as the SUNS’ first AFLW finals goal kicker, but it was a tough day out otherwise as the Dockers marched on with a 70-point win.
Three-and-a-half years later and the SUNS women returned to finals action under Cameron Joyce, again in an Elimination Final but this time in familiar territory at People First Stadium. Up against the Swans, Tara Bohanna kicked four goals in front of almost 3,000 fans at Carrara but it wasn’t to be as Sydney stemmed a SUNS fight to finish 9.4 (58) to 6.5 (41) victors.
VFL – seven finals, 5-2
The SUNS have been a regular feature in post-season action in the VFL since joining the competition in 2021, playing in six finals as well as a wildcard round defeat against Frankston in 2024.
In the first completed season since the NEAFL amalgamated alongside the VFL, the SUNS charged into the 2022 Preliminary Final with consecutive do-or-die wins, firstly against Box Hill before stunning the Sydney Swans in Week 2. A 28-point defeat at Fankhauser Reserve in Preliminary Final would end the SUNS’ 2022 campaign, but it would go one better the following year.
Finishing atop the ladder at the end of the regular season, the SUNS charged into a maiden VFL Grand Final with a 43-point Qualifying Final win over the Brisbane Lions, followed by a 15-point victory over Box Hill a fortnight later.
Taking on local hope Werribee in Melbourne, Mabior Chol led the way four goals, pairing well with Chris Burgess and Brodie McLaughlin who kicked three apiece, as the SUNS led at every change to win the club’s maiden premiership. The side included 16-year-old Leo Lombard who put a rubber stamp on the day with a classy last quarter goal.
NEAFL – five finals, 1-4
It’s a dive into the archives for the former North Eastern Australian Football League, which the SUNS featured in from its integration into the AFL through until 2020.
The club’s first taste of finals came in 2011, qualifying through the Northern Conference. Consecutive losses in the 2011 finals series to Mount Gravatt (68 points in Qualifying Final) and Morningside (75 points in Elimination Final), before bowing out in similar fashion in 2012 (99-point defeat versus Redland in Elimination Final) and 2016 (77 points in Elimination Final v Sydney University) meant it wasn’t until 2017 that the SUNS would taste finals success.
That elusive win would come against the NT Thunder with a 19.9 (123) to 12.12 (84) in the 2017 Elimination Final by a SUNS side boasting names such as Jarrad Grant (eight goals), Matt Shaw (three goals) as well as Caleb Graham – the only current SUNS listed player that featured on that day.
