12 months is a long time in football.

This time last year, external expectations on the Gold Coast SUNS were high, but an unsurmountable injury toll and off-field matters restricted Gold Coast to just four wins in 2015.

Fast-forward to today and things at Metricon Stadium have changed dramatically. Lessons have been learned, there has been heavy investment in leadership and behind closed doors, there’s a very noticeable difference among the playing group.

“A lot of things the public aren’t going to see. Internally you’ll see their attitudes towards training, their professionalism required,” senior coach Rodney Eade told United Coaches Chat.

“Even their mindset to be able to think of going in each training session and what they can get out of it to improve rather than just turning up as part of their brief to have to turn up for training and that’s on the schedule.

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“So their willingness to take information in, and learn and have an input themselves. So obviously we’re giving them some leadership training and their ability to actually challenge each other so there’s a lot of areas that have really improved.

“We’ve still got a bit to go but we are accelerating very quickly.”

An inexperienced SUNS side showed massive improvement in the back half of last season, including a draw with grand finalist West Coast and a 55-point win over North Melbourne who went on to play in a preliminary final.

A heavy focus on education during that time and over the summer months has paid dividends and Eade believes his game plan is in a good place.

“The latter stages of 2015 was a bit about staying competitive. At the same time, teaching and educating,” Eade said.

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“I think it’s given us a really good platform for this pre-season so we’ve tinkered a bit and tweaked a bit here and there in all areas; defensively, offensively and at stoppages.

“So we’d like to think with the talent being available we’re going to be a natural improvement there. Natural improvement again for players who have got some games into them; Lonergan, Hall, Miller, these types of players.

“But also we think the education process we were able to put through over the last three or four months will hopefully stand us in good stead.”