In an AFL world in which statistical analysis has reached extraordinary levels, it’s a challenge to find something new.
But as we launch a new weekly feature for www.goldcoastsuns.com.au that we’re going to call ‘What the Numbers Say” we’ve found one. And we’ve stolen a sporting analogy to explain it.
If the SUNS were a test cricketer batting in a pressure-cooker situation last Sunday they’d be guilty of a serious case of ‘the nervous 90s’.
At halftime against West Coast at People First Stadium the SUNS they had posted the second-highest first half score in club history, and enjoyed the biggest halftime lead in 332 games.
It was 13,6 (84) to the Eagles’ 3.4 (22) – a lead of 62 points.
The halftime score was one point behind the 13.7 (85) they’d posted against St Kilda at Marvel Stadium in 2014, when they led by 57 points.
They were one point ahead of the previous biggest halftime lead of 61 points against Richmond at People First Stadium in Opening Round 2024 – Damien Hardwick’s first game in charge.
This brings us to a new level of weird and wonderful statistics which, to continue the cricketing analogy, might normally be more applicable to a T20 cricket match.
The SUNS were on track to record the fastest “century” in the club’s 15 years in the AFL.
The target was 77min 11sec – the time it took to reach 100 points against GWS at People First Stadium in Round 23, 2013 when they had 12.3 (75) in 61min 13sec to halftime and brought up the ‘ton’ with an Aaron Hall goal 15min 58sec into the third quarter.
When Ben King goaled 1min 22sec after halftime on Sunday to push the SUNS score to 90 it looked like a foregone conclusion. Only 64min 42sec had elapsed.
But the ‘nervous 90s’ kicked in. The Eagles added the three goals and it wasn’t until the time clock showed 22min 3sec in the third term that a Sam Clohesy major pushed the score into triple figures. The aggregate time had blown out to 85min 23sec. Opportunity missed.
Still, King will remember the game fondly as he became the 11th SUNS player to 50 wins.
Playing his 122nd game, King was fifth-quickest to his winning half-century. He was quicker than Nick Holman (130 games), Ben Ainsworth (142), Jarrod Witts (145), Alex Sexton (176), Touk Miller (180) and David Swallow, but slower than Noah Anderson and Will Powell (120), Sam Collins (119) and Matt Rowell (105).
King also kicked the SUNS first goal for the 25th time to equal the club record of Tom Lynch.
This came after Bailey Humphrey opened the 2026 season with the 15th-quickest goal in SUNS history. He took just 47 sec to slot the first major of the year against Geelong.
The record for the quickest SUNS goal in history belongs to Chris Burgess, who took just 15sec to hit the scoreboard against Collingwood at the MCG in Round 7, 2021.
In 332 games there have been 20 goals inside the first minute. Charlie Dixon, who kicked the SUNS’ first goal against Carlton at the Gabba in 2011, shares with Gary Ablett, Jack Martin and Sam Day the record for twice registering a major score inside a minute, while Humprey, Sexton, Ben Long, Burgess, Dion Prestia, Ethan Read, Lachie Weller, Michael Rischitelli, Noah Anderson, Sam Flanders, Lynch and Miller have done so once each.
And, while it’s only very early in the season, the ever-efficient King is on track to obliterate any sort of scoring efficiency records – if they were to exist.
In two games he’s had 10 kicks for nine goals and one behind. So he’s scored every time he’s kicked the ball.
His 100% scoring ratio, albeit in two games, is up the equivalent and League-high (easily) conversion rate last year of 72.9%, when he kicked 71.23 from 129 kicks.
Among players who had more than 30 kicks last year, only four registered a score more than 50% of the times – St Kilda’s Jack Higgins was 55.4% from 114 kicks, GWS’ Jess Hogan was 54.1% from 111 kicks, North’s Nick Larkey went at 51.9% with 108 kicks, and Hawthorn’s Jack Gunston 50.5% on 218 kicks.
With the 59-point win over West Coast coming on the back of a 56-point win over Geelong in opening round it raised the question, have the SUNS posted back-to-back 50-point wins before? And if so when?
The answer is ‘yes’ – five times. But not in the first 253 games.
The first was all the way back on the club’s double road trip to Darwin in Rounds 11-12 of 2022 when they beat Hawthorn and North Melbourne by 67 points and 62 points.
They did it again in Darwin in 2024, beating North and Geelong by 68 and 64 points in Rounds 9-10, and last year they did it twice - West Coast and Melbourne by 87 points and 58 points at Perth Stadium and the MCG in Opening Round and Round 2, and Brisbane and Richmond by 66 and 84 points at People First Stadium in Rounds 20-21.
