SUNS co-captain David Swallow has said Gold Coast needs to be more fierce around the ball if the team are to salvage anything out of the remaining two games this season.

The SUNS were comprehensively beaten in the midfield by the Brisbane Lions in QClash18 leading Swallow to ask for a response from his teammates.

“It’s pretty simple, I think we just had too many guys who didn’t choose to turn up and play a hard brand of football tonight,” Swallow said post-match.

“They were harder, more desperate around the contest and proved why they were a good side.

“They looked like a team that was hungrier and we’ve shown at the front half of the year that we can play that brand of footy.

“Unfortunately at the moment we’ve got too many guys who aren’t choosing to perform on gameday and it results in us being inconsistent at the moment.”

After a team meeting post-game, Swallow said there had to be a change in mindset with an away trip to take on Hawthorn approaching this weekend.

“We just had a quick chat about how (the Lions) were more desperate than us when the game was on the line,” he said. 

“Our learnings are just that our guys can’t expect to roll up on game day and expect things to happen.”